


The Seconds That We Lost

by moneychangeseverything



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers: Prime
Genre: Acquaintances to Friends to Lovers, Bulkhead is here too (sort of), Canon-Typical Violence, Doctor/Patient, Drinking, Friends to Lovers, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, M/M, Origin Story, Quarterly Benefit 500, Slow Burn, Velocitron world-building, but not really, by robots, car races, fake robot medicine, warning for robot gore
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-12
Updated: 2021-01-24
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:28:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 52,857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25225354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moneychangeseverything/pseuds/moneychangeseverything
Summary: “Get out of here? How am I supposed to get anywhere like this?” Big Blue asked, shifting his recently-repaired limbs ineffectively.“Oh, I’m sorry, are you complaining about the life-saving medical care I just provided to you? For free, I might add?” Knock Out hissed back.Or,Before the Council of Worlds, before the races won and the reputation as a top-tier surgeon, Knock Out is just a down-on-his-luck jet who forms an unlikely friendship with an armoured car who couldn’t break Mach 1 to save his life. IDW KO/BD origins.
Relationships: Breakdown/Knock Out
Comments: 141
Kudos: 143





	1. Chapter 1

Knock Out onlined in the dark. 

Typical. He’d stuck a cheap chem-light to the wall of his hidey-hole before allowing himself to recharge, but of course it wouldn’t last through even one shift change. Well, there was no helping it. He switched on his headlights and used their meager, energon-wasting illumination to carefully buff the scratches out of his hands and forearms. 

He checked the finish on his legs and chassis, but just as he was about to lose the internal debate over whether to waste polish on his pedes, a notification popped up on his HUD. One of several that deserved to be ignored, but unfortunately ‘five kliks to shift change’ was a little more urgent than, say, ‘fuel reserves at 8%’ or ‘self repair systems offline’. 

Another day, another quarter ration, he supposed as he emerged, blinking, into the light of the corridor. Knock Out ignored the stares and whispers as he walked. Even in the Undercarriage, it was unusual to see a flight-frame, much less one moving under their own power. 

Knock Out wasn’t just moving, either, he was hustling, his thrusters ringing against the metal floor as he picked up the pace. Too little, too late, though - he palmed the door to the recycling clinic an entire half klik after shift change. And there went five percent of his ration. Perfect. 

His bad mood wasn’t improved by the sight of Quickpulse lounging against the reception counter, optics offline and hands twitching. 

“Seriously? You couldn’t wait until after your shift?”

Quickpulse didn’t reply. He never did, when someone mentioned the circuit boosters. Knock Out stalked forward, grabbing a datapad to check the status of the disassembly bay. 

“Three for you to finish this shift, Knock Out. I want to see an empty bay before we get the next delivery. The two racers should have some salvageable parts, and that big armoured car needs to be broken down fully.” 

“And evidently you didn’t see fit to get started.” Knock Out replied as he looked over the nearly unintelligible glyphs. 

“You’d do well to remember your place, Apprentice.” Quickpulse hissed. It would have sounded rather more intimidating if the bot’s vocalizer hadn’t been glitching in and out.

“I’ll be sure to do that.” Knock Out drawled as he clicked his way into the depths of the clinic. 

\--

As usual, the leakers to be disassembled looked barely worth the trouble. One frame had gone completely grey, and was covered in energon and dents - likely beaten to death by a group of bots. Knock Out hoped they weren’t expecting much for bringing in the frame of their victim - mechs who were desperate enough to sell their wheels weren’t likely to have anything of value left in their frames. 

The second was a classic case of starvation, plating brittle and crumbly to the touch. He’d be even more useless than the first. But the third mech, well. He was much more interesting. The unusually big, blocky frame was a deep blue - all the colour nanites fully functioning, odd in a mech who should have been dead for at least a few shifts. The injuries didn’t look particularly severe either, some deep dents likely caused by a head-on collision in alt, and few severed energon lines. 

In fact, Knock Out thought to himself as he stepped closer, none of these injuries should have stopped the bot’s spark at all. Well indeed. 

Before he had really processed the conclusions his brain module was handing him, Knock Out had triggered the transformation sequence on the big mech’s chest plates and was looking down at his glowing, living spark. 

Slagging third rate, half glitched spark sensors! Knock Out didn’t know why he was surprised. 

Though this did leave him in a bit of a sticky situation. On one hand, this mech’s components would be worth more than the other two leakers in the bay combined. On the other hand, this wasn’t just some collection of useful parts on a table. There was no reason the big blue mech couldn’t walk away from this. A marginally competent medic could fix him with nothing more than the supplies in this recycling clinic. 

Knock Out’s processor looped even as his servo transformed into a micro-welder and began repairing the mech’s severed energon lines. His pedes moved purposefully to the beating victim and set up a siphon, but instead of outletting the tube into the liquid disposal hatch, he ran it through a filter and then into Big Blue’s secondary fuel intake. 

He was still thinking about the creds a full set of wheels would bring (and how displeased Quickpulse would be to lose them) as he popped the dents out of the big mech’s chestplate and carefully set it back into place over his brightening spark. Limbs and extremities were realigned, tears welded, circuits re-routed. 

The broken optic glass was next, removed and tossed into the solid waste disposal. Luckily, leaker number two had intact glass that could be repurposed, with a colourless tint that shouldn’t interfere with the shade of Big Blue’s natural biolights. Knock Out stroked his hands over the bot’s unusual orange faceplate, searching for broken struts or connectors and admiring the contrast with his own rich red paint. A quick weld for the cut lip, denta still miraculously intact, and finished. 

The mech on his table was in need of a good polish, but otherwise was excellently repaired. Truly, Knock Out’s skills were wasted in the recycling bay. If only he’d been sparked with wheels instead of wings - well. No use congratulating himself on a job half-done. His repairs wouldn’t do Big Blue much good unless the mech’s processor booted up. Knock Out flipped open the panel at the base of Big Blue’s neck, and smoothly plugged in. 

/Energy levels 41%./  
/Frame Integrity 76%./  
/Reboot Processor [Y/N]?/  
/Y/  
/Rebooting.../ 

Knock Out unplugged in time to see the mech’s optics flicker and brighten, the warm yellow light somehow out of place in the dingy room. 

“Well, how are you feeling?” Knock Out asked. 

Big Blue opened his mouth to reply, but his vocalizer spat static instead. 

“There shouldn’t be any damage to your speech centres. Give your processor a klik to finish the reboot and then try that again.” Knock Out turned away, transforming out his buzzsaws and getting to work on the starvation victim. He’d already spent much more time than he should have on a bot that wasn’t going to net the clinic a single cred. 

Strangely, even that thought wasn’t enough to kill the glow of satisfaction that had settled in around his spark. 

\--

“So, uh, where am I?” 

Ah. Knock Out’s patient had regained use of his vocalizer, then. 

“You’re in Recycling Centre #43, in the Undercarriage. Somebot must have thought you were offline and dragged you here, I suppose.” 

“Oh. But. I’m not?”

Knock Out turned from his work to stare incedulously at the big bot. “Does this look like the Afterspark to you?” 

“Uh, I mean I’ve never seen it but. I guess not?” 

Knock Out was vaguely tempted to take pity on the mech. Anyone would be a little out of it after having their processor drained of energon and then forcibly rebooted. But then another notification popped up on his HUD. 

“Primus, It’s nearly the end of fourth shift! You need to get out of here!” 

“Get out of here? How am I supposed to get anywhere like this?” Big Blue asked, shifting his recently-repaired limbs ineffectively. 

“Oh, I’m sorry, are you complaining about the life-saving medical care I just provided to you? For free, I might add?” Knock Out hissed back. 

“So what, you want me to like, pay you? I didn’t ask for your help. What does a recycling-bot know about repairing mechs, anyway?” 

“I’ll have you know that I’m medic-sparked! Fixing your crude dents was frankly a waste of my skills. I’m not sure why I bothered.” Knock Out turned toward his patient with a glare, just in time to see the big mech’s optics catch on his wings, and something in his expression soften. It reminded him infuriatingly of pity. The bot’s mouth opened to make some - undoubtedly irritating - reply, but Knock Out quickly cut him off. “Enough - there’s no time for this. You need to get out of here before Quickpulse comes back. I’ll feed him some story about disposing of a rust-infected corpse, but that won’t fly if you’re still here cluttering up my disposal bay. Crawl if you can’t walk, but go!” 

Big Blue let out a loud ex-vent. Knock Out dialed up his audials a little, but the mech’s systems sounded clear, no tell-tale rasping or the gurgle of leaking energon, and his fans sounded like they were moving well enough. Ah. It also sounded like the stranger was talking. Possibly had been for some time. 

“So, pretty-bot? You gonna help me out, or what?” 

Knock Out let out a little ex-vent of his own. Clearly, the mech wasn’t going to make this easy on either of them, and there really wasn’t time to rehash whatever Big Blue had just said. “I expect to be repaid with a favour or favours of my choice, understand?” 

“Understood. Now c’mon, help a mech up, huh?” 

Knock Out managed to lever the bot off the disassembly slab, wincing as the paint on his shoulder scraped against the underside of the bigger mech’s arm. He hooked his claws in the seams of Big Blue’s chest plate, and firmly dragged him out of the room, out of the clinic and out into the corridors of the Undercarriage.

\--

“So doc, you got a designation?” 

“Its Knock Out.” 

There was a beat of awkward silence.

“Huh. That’d be a pretty good stage name for demo derbies.” 

“What? It isn’t a stage name bolt-head, it’s my real designation. Not to mention that I’d never risk my frame in those ridiculous competitions.” 

“Well no, a little flier like you’d get squished up real quick. I’m just saying.” The big lug twisted awkwardly to look Knock Out in the optics. “You’re a feisty one though, I’ll give you that. Those buzzsaws of yours could do a lot of damage in the right situation.” 

Knock Out was too busy throwing his weight back and trying to maintain their precarious balance to respond. Probably for the best, as all he could think was that real medics had hands that transformed into things like laser-scalpels and diagnostic instruments. He was lucky to have one little micro-welder. 

“It's right down here.” 

“What is? I thought we were looking for your friends?” 

“Yeah, these are our quarters.” 

“You have quarters?” Knock Out did a double take at the big bot, “Legally assigned, legally occupied quarters? That you pay creds for?” 

“I mean, we sublet them? But yeah.” 

Absolutely unbelievable. This big slow lunk, who’d been bleeding out on Knock Out’s table not so long ago, had an actual home to return to, while the medic himself had to find a new hideout every handful of shift cycles if he wanted to recharge. And mechs said that frame discriminiation was a thing of the past. 

Big Blue was staring at him again. 

“Well, what are you waiting for? Get going so I can get back to work.” 

“Yeah okay, calm your bolts already.” The mech limped forward, practically dragging Knock Out down a residential side corridor until they arrived at a hab-suite. Instead of palming the sensor like a normal bot, Big Blue hammered on the door with one of his ludicrously oversized fists. 

“Motormaster! It's Breakdown-” 

Ah. So Big Blue’s designation was Breakdown. Possibly Knock Out had missed some sort of social cue? Before he could ponder it further, the door whooshed open, and a veritable crowd of mechs spilled out into the hallway. 

“BD! They told us you were dead!” A yellow racer was shouting. Another mostly black bot with a wheeled frame was jumping, screaming something Knock Out couldn’t parse, while a red and grey grounder with a frankly admirable finish muttered something about keeping the inevitable at bay. They were all blocked from actually entering the hab suite by a horrifyingly large convoy class mech in the doorway.

“Woah mechs, woah. Relax. I’m not even a little dead - and it’s all thanks to Knock Out here.” 

Knock Out winced as the attention of all five questionably-stable bots focused on him like the laser sights on a blaster. 

\-- 

The circus had finally made its way into the hab suite. Of course, being stared at on a couch - crushed next to Breakdown and getting blue paint transfers all over his thigh and hip - was only a minor improvement from being stared at in the hallway. 

The yellow one was half-draped over Breakdown’s lap, craning his neck to see Knock Out around the armoured car’s ample chestplate. The loud one was on the floor, clinging to Breakdown’s legs, while the nicely-painted one leaned up against a wall like he’d rather be anywhere else. The stare-fest finally ended when the big convoy started talking. 

“So, Breakdown? Gonna tell us how you lived through that crash?” 

“Well, like I said, it was thanks to the doc here. When I woke up I was all patched, so I guess he’d know better than me what happened.” 

“Some new-spark little jet fixed you up? You sure he’s not just playing you, BD?” That was the loud one again. As if the fragger knew a medic from a kick in the aft. 

“Saw him turn a grey frame into spare parts in under five kliks, so I guess he’s got the skills. Not really much reason to lie either. So yeah guys, this is Knock Out. And Knock Out, this is Drag Strip, that’s Wildrider, that’s Dead End, and this is Motormaster.” 

Knock Out ignored Breakdown’s hasty introduction, taking some time to look around instead. No reason to retain the designations of bots he’d probably never see again. 

The hab superficially seemed like a mess, with dents in the walls and empty energon cubes sitting around. Still, it was a nice place. Vidscreen that may or may not work, furniture to sit on, a hall that led to private berthrooms and maybe even a washrack. Knock Out wasn’t jealous, he was just irritated. If he’d known Breakdown was this loaded, he’d have negotiated for creds and energon instead of a favour exchange. 

The big mech was still chatting away in the background, but Knock Out’s optics snagged on something - something beautiful. Something that he hadn’t seen in a very long time. 

“Is that - is that a rotary buffer?” 

“Yes, it’s mine. What of it?” 

Knock Out should have known that the shiny wall-leaner was the mech to ask. That slick-wet finish was the only clue he needed. Knock Out could feel his servos twitching. If he wasn’t practically pinned against the arm of the couch, he’d probably already be up and moving. He wanted to polish so badly, he could practically feel the buzz of the rotary buffer already. 

“I guess we’ve just figured out the favour I owe you, huh?” Breakdown chuckled. 

“Please! As if borrowing some polishing supplies is equivalent to saving a life. It’ll take more than that to satisfy me,” Knock Out scoffed. Of course, he would kill for a chance to fix his finish, even if it only lasted a few shift cycles. But Breakdown didn’t need to know that. 

“I mean, it’s Dead End’s stuff. It’s not like I can just give it to you.” 

“I’ll settle for unlimited access to your washracks and use of your polishes, paints and supplies.” 

“Sure whatev -” 

“Not a chance.” Breakdown was cut off by Mr. Its-My-Rotary-Buffer himself, Dead End. “You can use the ‘racks and the buffer, but bring your own paint and polish.” 

“Now we find out just how much your beloved Breakdown’s life really means to you, hmm?” 

“You don’t hafta get nasty, Knock Out,” Breakdown sighed, “I’ll help you polish your back, ok? Come back after you finish up your shift.” 

Knock Out tapped a claw against his lips. “Alright, but I want the shiny one helping too.” 

\--

“Oh, Primus, that’s amazing,” Knock Out moaned. He leaned harder into Breakdown’s hands as the large bot ran the buffer over and around his wings. 

“Stay still!” Dead End admonished, smacking Knock Out with a polishing cloth. 

Knock Out was just opening his mouth to apologize - or possibly make a scathing comment, he hadn’t yet decided - when the door to the wash racks slid open. 

“Sounds like someone’s getting fragged in here!” The yellow one called, cheerfully. 

“Yeah it’s getting me pretty hot, can we join?” That was the loud one. Gross. 

“You guys washing up before heading out to the derby?” Breakdown sounded completely unconcerned about his teammates' off-colour comments. 

“Not like there’s much point since we’re just gonna come back with twice as many scratches, but yeah,” sniggered the gross one. 

“You coming with, Dead End?”

“I suppose I had better. At least if I offline for good during speedster’s night, I’ll leave behind a pretty corpse. I suppose our dear doctor will have the joy of disassembling it.” Dead End was staring directly into Knock Out’s optics. It was creepy, but his finish looked great, so. You win some, you lose some. 

“You guys have fun, then. Smash up some of those little fraggers for me,” Breakdown called to his teammates as they filed out of the washracks. 

“They’re going to watch a demo derby?” Knock Out wondered, leaning back to look at Breakdown. The big mech didn’t seem worried, so this had to be something of a regular occurrence. 

“To watch? No way! They’re gonna join in. Haven’t you heard of the Stunticons?” 

“I’m afraid I haven’t. Though I can’t say that I keep up with underground derbies in any level of detail.” 

“Well, maybe you should! I can tell you’ve been wondering how we got such a swank pad.” 

Breakdown did have a point there. Either the illegal destruction rings paid much better than Knock Out had heard, or Breakdown and his ‘Stunticons’ were very good. 

“I suppose that explains how you ended up on my table in the first place.” 

“Yeah, had a solo night go south on me. That fragger Bulkhead. What I don’t get, though, is why they just recycled me without checking if I was still online.” 

“It doesn’t make any sense. Surely a bot like you is worth more alive than dead.” 

“You’d think, doc.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Most of the warnings in the tags appear in this chapter! Please let me know if you need details.  
> ::using double colons for comm chatter::

“Hey, pretty-bot. Your boss is tripping absolute bolts up there, you know that?”

“I have a designation, Breakdown. Use it.” Knock Out spun to glare at the blue mech before letting out a weary ex-vent, “Also yes, I know. He usually is.” 

“How’s a mech like that end up running a whole recycling centre? Mech I know got a thousand-shift racing ban for getting caught smoking dross, and it was like one time.” 

“The real question is, how did a full-sparked medic with an ambulance alt sink all the way to the Undercarriage? Because I can tell you, a little booster-addiction wouldn’t be enough.” 

“Wait, seriously? That’s what he turns into? I thought he was maybe some kind of monoformer or like a … one of those stationary alts that sit on tables, you know?” Breakdown’s orange faceplate had scrunched up in confusion. It wasn’t cute. There was nothing appealing at all about the mech’s big body and bright yellow optics. 

“No, he just sold all his kibble for creds. Keeps trying to sell his wheels, but so far I’ve convinced him that it isn’t worth the transformation sickness.,” Knock Out saw Breakdown’s optics flick to his wings again, and decided to move right along. “So, may I ask why you’ve decided to interrupt my work?” 

“Well. I wanted to ask you if you’d like to. Y’know. Come to the derby a couple shifts from now?” Breakdown shifted his pedes awkwardly. 

“And why, exactly, would I want to do that?” 

“Well it's a team event! So me and the rest of the Stunties are all gonna be there. You like Dead End, right?” 

Knock Out liked Dead End’s polishing supplies. Extending that to the mech himself would definitely be an exaggeration. But Breakdown looked almost embarrassingly hopeful. Knock Out narrowed his optics at the big bot. 

“You just want me there to patch you up when you get injured, right?” 

Breakdown looked shifty. No surprise there. People wanted Knock Out around for one of two things, and neither of them had anything to do with liking his company. 

“Yeah I mean… that’s a bonus, right?” 

“Whatever, Breakdown,” Knock Out sighed, “I have better things to do than watch you idiots smash yourselves up just so I can put you back together.” 

“C’mon, I’ll buy you a cube of high grade! The good stuff too.” 

“Just because I’m practical enough to cash-in on favours doesn’t mean I can be bought, you oaf!” 

“Two cubes of high grade?” 

Knock Out hesitated. 

“Two cubes of high grade, and I won’t ask you to repair Wildrider? Unless he’s actually dying, I guess.” 

“...if you want to be repaired by an overcharged medic that badly, I suppose I won’t say no.” 

\-- 

Knock Out ex-vented with irritation as he waited outside the clinic for Breakdown. 

“These things are actually illegal, y’know,” he mimicked under his breath. “Can’t just send it over the comm channel, y’know. Can’t send it over the comm channel, my shiny red aft!” The idiot could have just told him where the derby was. Knock Out knew the Undercarriage. He knew where to find illegal stuff! Knock Out had done plenty of crimes before, thank you very much. 

But no. Now here Knock Out was, waiting for Breakdown, getting anxious like it was some kind of - of date! And Breakdown didn’t even have the basic decency to show up on time. Knock Out whipped his compact mirror and detailing paint out of his subspace. At least he had time for some last minute touch ups. 

Of course, the lunk showed up when Knock Out was halfway through re-doing the linework around his optics. 

“KO! You waited!” Breakdown seemed unusually energetic. And overly familiar. 

“Seriously? It’s still two syllables, Breakdown.” 

“You want me to say KO like… koh? Koo?” 

“I would like you to pronounce it Knock. Out.” 

Luckily, Breakdown’s half-confused and half-annoyed staring gave Knock Out time to finish sweeping a perfect line of black under his left optic. He snapped his compact mirror shut, slipped it into his subspace and started walking. 

“Are you coming?” 

“Uh, Knock Out?” 

“Really, Breakdown, we’re already late enough as it is.” 

“No yeah, I know that. It’s just that you’re going the wrong way.” 

Knock Out spun on his heel thruster and continued walking without a word. 

\-- 

::Breakdown. Why did you seat me with the shareware?:: Knock Out hissed over the comm, glaring at a bright green bot who hadn’t stopped eyeing him since he’d sat down. 

::You should be nice to sex workers, Knock Out. You know they don’t like to be called that.:: 

Knock Out sent back a wordless noise of irritation. 

::Anyway, that’s where friends and family of the teams sit. All the participants get a spot reserved for their amica or conjunx, y’know?::

::Are you telling me that one of these bots is Wildrider’s conjux?::

::Hah! Yeah, no. We usually sell our free spots to randoms, or trade them as favours. We like to keep some things within the team, y’know?:: 

Knock Out shuddered at the thought of anyone interfacing with Wildrider, in or out of the team. Breakdown interfacing with Wildrider. Breakdown’s big hands on his thighs. No. That train of thought wasn’t going anywhere good. 

::Why aren’t I with the pit crew? I thought you wanted me here to put your sorry afts back together.:: 

::Pit crew? Hah! You’re kidding, right? This is a demo derby, KO. The point is to keep going ‘til you’re scrap. Pit crew would kinda wreck that. Don’t worry though, doc, you’ll get plenty chance to put us back together when it’s done.::

Knock Out supposed that made sense. Still though, if his services were only required after the contest, why did Breakdown want him to sit through the whole thing? 

::Gotta go, it’s starting!:: 

And there went his only chance for a distraction. Knock Out ex-vented and rested his chin on a servo, looking around the pit. The event was being held in some kind of abandoned practice track, or maybe a storage room; basically a big empty space with makeshift seats around the edges and a bunch of scrap piled in the centre. It was far from glamorous, but Knock Out had a cube of free - or paid for by Breakdown, same thing - high grade in one servo, so things could be worse. 

The announcer started his patter as the Stunticons came screaming into the arena. Knock Out winced at the juxtaposition of Motormaster’s bulk and Drag Strip’s almost obscenely light frame; this didn’t seem like it could end well. Their competitors rolled out next, all heavy ground-frames led by a chunky green off road vehicle. 

Then the starting gun went off, and Knock Out was lost. The floor was a haze of smoke, bathed in the shrieks of tearing, crashing metal. It was brutal, destructive, and somehow fascinating. 

Drag Strip and Dead End hovered around the edges of the fray, rocking on their wheels behind large pieces of debris, then zooming out to hit the unsuspecting enemy from the rear. Motormaster and Wildrider took a more direct approach, aiming for head-on collisions and playing endless games of chicken. At the centre of it all was Breakdown, his usually awkwardly big alt-mode the perfect balance of strength and speed. 

Knock Out winced as Breakdown took a hit from the green guy, but the armoured car gracefully used the resulting spin to get himself out of range. He then raced up a pile of scrap and jumped off, landing square on a red van’s back. The sound of the van’s tires popping was loud enough to break through the resulting cheers as Breakdown zoomed away. The enemy combatant was carried off the field to recover - or not - on the sidelines. 

It seemed like no time at all before Stunticons had managed to scrap more than half of their opponents, and only Wildrider had taken any significant damage. The crazy car wasn’t slowed down by his dented hood and busted headlights either, if the way he shot head-on at the green ATV was any indication. Instead of standing his ground, the green bot reversed and drove away to the sound of booing. 

On the other side of the arena Motormaster and Breakdown had cornered some kind of construction vehicle with an offensively orange paint job, and were taking turns reversing into him, damaging the mech without putting their engines in danger. With that kind of denting, Knock Out thought, the construction-bot had to have very few unbroken struts left. 

Dead End and Wildrider were still chasing the green off-roader around, but Knock Out couldn’t see Drag Strip anywhere on the field. And when had he learned their designations, anyway? Pit-forsaken social coding trying to get him to care about other mechs. At least it helped distinguish the cars he cared about from the other red and black vehicles in the derby. None of the Stunticons were blessed with naturally distinctive colouration like Knock Out. 

Oh - there! Drag Strip was rounding a pile of sheet metal stacked nearly to the ceiling, just as Dead End and Wildrider were herding the big green ATV in that direction. Drag Strip started to turn one-eighty to flee - no way he could take a head-on hit from that monster - but was ever-so-slightly too slow. Knock Out felt his claws scrape the palms of his hands as he clenched his fists - and the green bruiser t-boned Drag Strip, knocking him into a crunching barrel roll. 

The ATV didn’t get a chance to finish Drag Strip off - Breakdown and Motormaster were there, pinning him between their doors as Dead End and Wildrider slammed into him from behind - but Knock Out didn’t see the match’s conclusion. He was already up and moving out of the stands, down into the pit. 

\--

Knock Out shoved his hands into his subspace and dumped out all the medical supplies he had brought with him. They spilled out onto the scorched ground and more than a few rolled out of sight, but he was too busy snatching the heavy-duty cauterizer to corral them. 

“Someone pass me those static bandages!” Knock Out yelled. He reached into Drag Strip’s gaping chest cavity and snagged the largest leaking energon line, hitting it with a quick blast of heat to close it. The secondaries were next, sealing one slippery, spurting tube after the other. But there was no way he could get all of the tertiaries manually, much less the innumerable seeping capillaries - which was why he needed those frelling bandages! 

“Breakdown!” Knock Out shouted. He didn’t know whether the armoured car was within audial range, but right now his erstwhile patient was the only mech with even half a processor that Knock Out could call to mind. 

Then - thank Primus, finally - the bandages were slapped into his hand and he was able to keep at least some energon on the inside of Drag Strip’s frame. With the bleeding stopped, Knock Out’s next concern would normally be overheating, but the swaths of missing plating took care of ventilation quite effectively. He popped open Drag Strip’s wrist port, plugged in and slipped the grateful racer into medical stasis. 

Knock Out rebooted his optics as he looked up, but yes, he was in fact surrounded by a forest of legs. An interesting development - in his experience people mostly got out of the way when they saw somebot leaking out in a public place. 

“Ready to get him out of here?” asked Breakdown, on his knees beside Knock Out with energon on his hands. 

“Yes, let’s get him to the recycling centre - it's the closest thing to a clinic around here. If you managed to offline any of the competition, grab them too. We could use the extra supplies.” 

\--

“Primus, doc, they’re killing me out there. You saw it! I need more armour, more reinforcement, more something! I can’t take many more hits like that, and you might not be there to patch me up next time.”

“Here’s the thing, Drag Strip,” Knock Out replied, “we both know that your frame is too light-weight to take a direct hit like the one at that last derby. But it’s also a lot heavier than it needs to be. You’re a racer! You need to play to your strengths. More armour isn’t the answer - less is.” 

“Less armour? I dunno about that,” Breakdown cut in, glancing at Drag Strip’s still-visible weld lines. 

“No, no listen to me. Drag Strip, if you had been just a little faster you could have avoided that hit entirely. If we could get rid of some mass, it would increase not only your manoeuvrability, but also your reaction time and fuel efficiency. Your engine already runs at the maximum output for your tank size, but if your baseline energon use was lower we’d be able to install a turbo switch that would use the excess to give you more power when you really needed it.” 

“You really thought this through, huh doc?” Breakdown asked, when it was clear that Drag Strip was too busy rebooting his optics in surprise to reply. 

“Of course I did! You had me sit through that ridiculous competition, did you think I was just staring at your bumper the whole time?” 

“I mean, you stared at his bumper at least part of the time,” Drag Strip recovered, snickering, “I could see you from the floor. Your optics sure don’t get all bright like that when you look at Motormaster.” 

“Yes, well,” Knock Out sniffed, “I was merely keeping an eye on Breakdown’s health. You’re not the only one who had a near-death experience recently, remember?” 

The yellow speedster was still smirking, and Breakdown had an expression on his orange faceplates that Knock Out, frankly, couldn’t be expected to decipher. Time to get back to business then. 

“Anyway, Drag Strip, if you do the procedure you won’t regret it. The increased speed and power will more than make up for the reduced armour. You won’t even have to change your tactics - this will merely enhance an already successful technique. I’ll complete the surgery for free and give you a chance to test it before we negotiate for a favour exchange, how about that?” 

“For free, eh? What about the cost of the repairs from a couple of shifts ago, then?” 

Breakdown let out a snort. “He did it for two cubes of high grade, and a promise not to make him repair Wildrider.” 

Which, in retrospect, had been an excellent decision, if Knock Out did say so himself. He’d luxuriated in the washracks rinsing energon off his frame as Breakdown and Dead End tried to hammer the dents out of Wildrider’s chest plate. Knock Out had listened to the yelling and was not even a little tempted to help. Though he’d only had a chance to enjoy about half of his cube of high grade before the rather dramatic end of the derby. 

“I am still waiting for that second cube, Breakdown.” 

“You were a bit busy at the time, I think.” 

“I’m not busy now, am I?” 

“Actually, doc, you said you had to get to work for the beginning of second shift.” 

“Scrap!” Knock Out got to his pedes - blasted comfortable Stunticon couch, he was getting soft - and got moving. 

“Come back in a few shifts and I’ll buy you that high grade at an actual bar!” Breakdown called after him. 

Knock Out walked faster to get away from the sound of Drag Strip’s laughter. 

\-- 

It was all Breakdown’s fault.

Knock Out had a perfectly acceptable little set-up before he’d met the big blue menace; go to work, disassemble some dead bots, steal whatever he could on the side, recharge, and repeat. He’d built up a nice little stash of creds - more from the stealing than the working, but who was counting, really - which he kept safely distributed in caches throughout the Undercarriage. And now? He could barely remember the last time he’d checked those caches, much less added to them. 

He’d never save up enough at this rate - not when he was spending all his time with the frelling Stunticons. Not just using their washracks - or even enjoying Dead End’s genuinely excellent work with a rotary buffer - but drinking energon with them, attending their foolish competitions, and just hanging out. Knock Out didn’t do hanging out. Except that apparently, now he did. 

Case in point, right now he was leaving work, and where was he going? To the Stunticons’ hab suite. Because Breakdown had promised to buy him a cube of high grade at a bar. Had Knock Out ever actually been to a bar? He couldn’t remember. Certainly not because he wanted to enjoy a drink with another mech. The whole situation was getting out of hand. 

Knock Out tried to tell himself that this was nothing more than an exchange of favours. He’d provided medical care, and in return he got some high grade. Nothing different from dozens of other trades he’d made. True, those had been mostly for shanix and energon, and it wasn’t always his skills as a medic he was trading. But. The principle was the same. 

It mattered little that he would probably be welcomed into the hab suite when he arrived. That he’d sit on the couch with Drag Strip and check over his injuries, and maybe drink one of Wildrider’s ridiculous energon concoctions before leaving so he wouldn’t get overcharged too quickly. It would be perfectly reasonable for him to join Dead End in the wash racks and help him with his polish afterward - that was a favour bought and paid for like any other. 

Yes. He’d complete this exchange with Breakdown, and then he would get back to what was important. No more distractions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I ... do not know how cars work. Also I have never seen an organised sporting event involving cars ;;-;;  
> Thanks for reading and please let me know if there was something you liked!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Drinking and brief drunkenness in this one!

“So where exactly are you taking me?” 

“Doc! You’ve never been to Speedio’s?” 

“I thought it was Speedia?” 

“The race is called Speedia. The bar is called Speedio’s.” 

“Thanks, I hate that. Can I assume that their high grade is as bad as their name?” 

“Well jeez doc, I didn’t name it - but it’s the hoppin-est spot around, I promise you. Nothing less would do for the mech that saved Drag Strip’s life, right? Not to mention my own sorry plating.” 

“Hmm. Quite.” 

“Look! We’re here,” Breakdown grinned, ignoring Knock Out’s tone. 

“This is the best spot around?” It looked like a normal hab-suite door. 

“Actually doc, I said hoppin-est. But yeah, the best underground spot - I didn’t think you were gonna want to show ID or anything. I know you like to polish so you look like some kinda new-spark straight out of the creche.” 

That was actually surprisingly considerate of Breakdown. And surprisingly observant. Maybe there was more to the big lug than, ah, met the eye.

“Alright, Breakdown, I defer to your expertise. Show me this bar you’re so fond of.” 

Breakdown just grinned, took one of Knock Out’s servos in his much-larger palm, and dragged him through the door. 

The handholding made sense as they passed the threshold - the room was packed with bots of all sizes. Heavy equipment and tiny stationary alts jostled with racing frames and trucks. There was a pounding beat coming from somewhere, and mechs were swaying and moving their pedes. 

Breakdown towed Knock Out toward the back of the room - Knock Out may or may not have let his servos slip into a few subspaces along the way - until they fetched up at a makeshift bar. 

“What’re you fine bots drinkin’ tonight?” 

“I’ll get an Override’s Overload, my mech - and whatever he’s having.” 

Knock Out froze - though hopefully not visibly. How in the name of Primus’ rusty codpiece was he supposed to know what to order? Was there some sort of list of standard cocktails that bots were just supposed to know about? No one had ever told Knock Out about this. Well, when in doubt. 

“Same for me, please,” Knock Out said, leaning in with his most charming smile.

“Coming right up.” The bartender turned away, pulling out two empty cubes and adding seemingly-random amounts of unidentifiable liquids to each. Not unlike fueling at the Stunticon household, really. When the drinks were finished, they were an alarming shade of fuchsia, and smoking slightly. Breakdown grabbed his with a grin and lifted it to Knock Out. 

“Bottoms up, doc!” 

Knock Out clunked his cube against Breakdown’s and - after a surreptitious glance from under his optic shutters - followed the big mech in draining it. He felt more or less instant regret. Only his familiarity with his own gag reflex coding - for purely medical reasons, of course - kept him from choking. 

Breakdown smirked at him knowingly. 

“Want something a little smoother next?” 

Knock Out closed his eyes and swayed as he nodded. 

\--

He was so fragging overcharged. So slagging sloshed. Knock Out giggled a little to himself. Yep, he was an absolute goner. 

At some point he and Breakdown had made their way to a corner booth, and were sprawled at right angles to each other. Knock Out had an elbow on the table and was resting his chin in a servo, while Breakdown had draped his arms along the back of the seat. His reach was so long that his fingers were practically brushing Knock Out’s wing. Knock Out could feel the warmth of Breakdown’s frame even in the steamy bar. He wasn’t at all tempted to move closer. 

“Doc, doc. What are you laughing about?” 

“Why do you always call me ‘doc’, anyway?”

“Well like - you didn’t like it when I called you KO.” 

“That’s not my name. Doc isn’t my name either, though. Do you hate my designation or something?” 

“No, no. I like it, it’s a good name. It’s a good name for you. But like, I don’t wanna call you by your full designation, you know? It feels so formal. Aren’t we friends? Friends have nicknames for each other, right?” 

“Friends? Wha - this is just a business exchange, Breakdown. This is a business-like business trade, Breakdown.” 

The blue bot blinked at Knock Out for a moment, then collapsed into laughter. 

“Sure, sure. Just a trade, right. That’s why you’ve been spending four out of five off-shifts at our hab for cycles. You have noticed that you practically live with us, right? The only way we could spend more time together is if you brought your berth over and started recharging with us.” 

Frag. That was true. And Breakdown didn’t even know that Knock Out didn’t have a berth. Mmm. Sleeping in a berth would be so nice. But wait, if they were friends - 

“But then why are you buying me all these drinks?”

“That’s because we’re friends too! I like spending time with you; you’re basically an honorary Stunticon now. Plus, you’re pretty hilarious when you’re overcharged.” 

“Oh. Oh! But Breakdown… I don’t have time for friends.” Knock Out tried to take a sip of his drink and choked a little. It was possible that his vents were stuttering, but that was just from being overcharged. If there was washer fluid leaking from optics, it was for the same reason - though he wasn’t admitting to anything. He hid his face with his palms just in case. 

“Woah KO - Knock Out - what’s wrong?” Breakdown’s hand slid from the top of the booth to pat between the jet’s wings, and he leaned in hesitantly. 

“I just - I just can’t,” Knock Out sobbed, “Look at this! This is all I managed to get today.” He reached into his subspace and pulled out the few cred chips he’d manage to pickpocket for Breakdown to see. “I don’t have time for friends - these last couple dozen shifts have been some of the worst since I started saving. I’m getting so close now but I can’t make it much longer - I can’t slow down now.” 

Breakdown pulled Knock Out closer, gently pressing on his servo to slide the credits back into the medic’s subspace. This close, his EM field was steady and soothing, with a distinct undertone of confusion. 

“I don’t understand, doc. I’m sorry if I’m taking up too much of your time, but what do you need all these creds for? Is someone threatening you? Because Motormaster and I can give them a talking to. And by talking I mean we’ll beat them up.” 

Knock Out gasped a laugh. “This isn’t the kind of problem you can solve with your fists, Breakdown.” 

“Then what kind of problem is it? C’mon, talk to me.” 

Knock Out shook himself, taking a moment to wipe the tears off his faceplate, and tried to get his processor to cooperate. When venting deeply didn’t help, he engaged his FIM chip and raised his frame temperature to burn off the overcharge. He heard the chirr-ing sound of Breakdown doing the same. 

“How old do you think I am, Breakdown?”

“I think you’re older than you look. Honestly, KO, there are a lot of things about you that don’t make sense. I wasn’t gonna ask until you were ready to tell me.” 

“Yes, well. Yes. I was sparked during the 112th harvest from the hot-spot inside Navitas.” 

Breakdown did a double take. “What! Are you serious? Doc, that means - you’re older than - KO how long have you been down here?” 

“Since the cycle my cohort finished our adulthood race, same as you. Same as nearly everyone else down here, I imagine. Did you come in last, Breakdown? When they decided that your childhood was over, and sent you to race for your future?” 

“Motormaster did, actually - I was second last. We spent a lot of time together in the creche - pretty much all of the rest of our cohort were speedsters.” 

“I won, you know. My adulthood race. Not that it mattered. No matter how fast or smart we start out, all flight-frames end up the same way.” 

“Yeah doc, except that you haven’t. How are you not a twitching mess right now?” 

“I’ll tell you a little secret about medics, Breakdown. Medicine is about more than just replacing circuits and pulling dents out of plating - it’s also about coding. And the best way to understand a mech’s coding is to see it in action. So, when I was a fresh and blobby protoform indistinguishable from the other medic newsparks, I got write access to my own code. Of course, they tried to put the locks back on when my wing-nubs grew in, but by then I knew my own processor inside out, and had added plenty of back doors.”

“Knock Out - you - are you saying that you modified your own coding? Forget transformation sickness, how are you still online?” 

“Processor coding is designed to be adjusted to meet individual bots’ needs, Breakdown. They tell you that playing around with it will kill you - and force the write-protection mods on newsparks - because they don’t want people making themselves better. Oh, they don’t want low-class bots like you and me finding ways to stay online a little longer - that would prevent the recycling of highly useful parts like t-cogs and wheels - but most of all they don’t want speedsters finding new ways of getting faster. That would be competition - and there’s nothing the existing cadre of winners hates more than a fair race.” 

Breakdown leaned away a little, and yes, there it was. There was a reason he didn’t talk about his views on coding and oppression. Breakdown probably thought Knock Out was some kind of crazy conspiracy theorist - he probably thought Knock Out’s transformation sickness was manifesting as paranoia - he was probably - readjusting his grip and pulling Knock Out into his lap? What? 

“Doc,” Breakdown whispered into his audial, “If all of that is true, you gotta keep it down.” 

“What? Breakdown -” Knock Out struggled, trying to free himself from Breakdown’s embrace, but the big menace just held on tighter. 

“Work with me here, KO. I’m sorry for the paint transfers, but I need you to play along. This place is fine if mechs think you’re just some new-spark slumming it, but there are definitely undercover enforcers in here. If they find out that you know how to jailbreak, we are both gonna be in a lot of trouble.” 

“B-breakdown, are you saying that you believe me?” Knock Out tucked his face against blue shoulder plating, to hide his words from prying optics. Definitely only for that reason. 

“Yeah doc. I mean, I got no idea how you did it, but you’re obviously not glitched out of your mind, so. I still want you to tell me what you need the creds for, but it might be good if we got out of here first.” 

“Okay. Let’s go home - I mean, to your home. Let’s go to the Stunticon hab. Yes.” 

“Still a little overcharged, huh?” Breakdown laughed. “Ok mech, we gotta make it look good though, alright?” 

Knock Out started to nod, but then Breakdown’s big servo was tilting his chin up, and Breakdown was leaning down, and Breakdown was kissing him. 

Knock Out’s processor froze up. By the time he was tracking again, Breakdown had swept him up in his arms and was carrying him out of the bar, rumbling something about ‘taking this party someplace private’ loud enough for the whole room to hear. 

\--

“You mad at me, doc?” 

“No - no I’m not angry. I was just - surprised,” Knock Out replied. Breakdown had put him down once they were out of sight from the doorway, and now they were walking side-by-side back to the Stunticon hab suite, like any other shift. 

“Look, I’m sorry. I know that was a lot, I just couldn’t think of a better way to get us out of there fast. Like I said, people already thought -” 

“No, believe me, I do understand. It’s quite alright, I just hadn’t -” 

They were cut off by a scream, and then by the dented frame of a mech sailing out of a side corridor to crash in a heap at their feet. 

“Wildrider🙺” Breakdown exclaimed.

Knock Out knelt down next to the bleeding bot, and sure enough, it was Wildrider. He’d been beaten badly, both optics cracked and major struts broken, plating crumpled and warped. Knock Out looked up to ask Breakdown to pick him up - Wildrider needed repairs now, and the medic didn’t have anything in his subspace - and saw the big bot squaring off against two strangers with energon on their fists. 

He quickly got to his feet and transformed out his buzzsaws, flaring his wings to make himself look bigger. He was a protoform next to Wildrider’s attackers, but he’d still be able to do some damage. 

Knock Out was still trying to psych himself up for the fight when Breakdown let out a derisive blat of static. 

“Look, mechs, you might be able to beat up one crazy car, but I do this for a living. Get out of here now, and maybe I won’t hunt you down and pound you into scrap.” 

The bots exchanged glances, shrugged, and ran at Breakdown. 

Less than a klik later, they were on the ground. Breakdown had transformed his servo into some kind of ridiculous hammer, and whacked both of them upside the helm while they were still charging wildly forward. Knock Out hadn’t even had the chance to raise his buzzsaw into a block position. He was - yes might as well admit it - Knock Out was impressed. 

“Are they offline?” he asked. 

“Nah, just stunned. I can hit them again if you need the parts?” 

Knock Out took another look at Wildrider’s frame. “No, I don’t think I’ll have to replace much. You have extra optics back home, don’t you?” 

“Yeah ‘course. I replace them for this little fragger every dozen shifts or something.” 

\-- 

“Primus! What in the pit happened?” 

Knock Out finished soldering the nerve circuitry in Wildrider’s shoulder joint before looking up a Drag Strip. 

“What does it look like? Your teammate got the scrap beaten out of him, as usual.” 

“So what, he stumbled in after your little date night and you decided to repair him out of the goodness of your heart? Or did BD promise you something extra special?” Drag Strip nudged Breakdown with his pede, but the big bot ignored his teammate’s smirk, busy picking glass out of Wildrider’s optic sockets. 

Knock Out let out a hiss of static. “Sorry, I’m too busy repairing another one of your bolt-headed comrades to deal with your dirty little insinuations at the moment. If you get out of our way now, maybe I won’t leave you to bleed out when it's your beaten frame I find in the corridor, hmm?”

“Yeah, right. That’d be more intimidating if I actually believed that you saved his aft. Wilds doesn’t lose fights - he’s hotheaded, but he’s hard to catch and he’s actually not dumb.” 

“Well, I suppose there’s a first time for everything, then. Your bot was almost offline when we found him, and those bruisers didn’t look like they were planning to stop until Breakdown made them.” 

Breakdown looked up from where he had finished wiring in the new optics - he hadn’t been kidding about doing it often, either, Knock Out wasn’t sure he could replace a mech’s vision sensors that quickly without being jacked into their systems. 

“No but KO, Drag Strip is right,” he said, “this isn’t like Wildrider at all. I’ve lost count of the times that fragger has walked in the door covered in dents, but he always walks in - I’ve never actually seen him hurt this bad until today. It doesn’t make sense.” 

“Perhaps we should ask the mech himself? He’s repaired enough to come out of stasis,” Knock Out replied. He’d be the first to admit that he didn’t know Wildrider well - by choice, the mech was hardly pleasant company - but if the Stunticons had near-death experiences this frequently, he couldn’t see how they’d made it this far without a medic. Knock Out was certainly willing to entertain the notion that this level of dangerous living was unusual for the group, even if their natural silliness seemed to lend itself to mishaps and mayhem. 

He plugged into Wildrider, gently guiding his systems through the boot-up, leaving most of his locomotion routines offline for now. It would be best to avoid having the bot thrashing about, undoing all of Knock Out’s work. 

Wildrider’s optics slowly started to brighten, then he gave a full-frame shudder and called out, “Motormaster!” 

“Hey Wilds, it’s Drag Strip and Breakdown, Motormaster isn’t back yet,” the yellow speedster said, surprisingly tenderly, “but how are you doing, buddy?” 

“Motormaster! Where is he - is he ok?” 

“We didn’t see him, mech,” Breakdown soothed, “Just found you getting smacked down in some side corridor. Motormaster wasn’t there, but I can comm him if you want?” 

“He was there,” the injured bot insisted, “He was right there beside me. He’s the one who insulted that random’s conjux and then didn’t back down when they tried to offline us. He must have been there - you have to go back for him.” 

Knock Out watched as Breakdown tilted his helm and lifted a servo to his audial, obviously comm-ing his team leader. His orange faceplate scrunched in confusion at whatever Motormaster was saying, then darkened in what looked to Knock Out like anger. That was a surprise; the Stunticons usually acted like their boss could do no wrong. It wasn’t a sentiment Knock Out could agree or disagree with; the large convoy seemed to go out of his way to avoid the medic whenever possible. Knock Out didn’t think they had exchanged more than a few words in the dozens of shifts he’d spent at the Stunticon hab. Still, something about the whole situation didn’t sit right. 

A sudden impulse had him asking Drag Strip if he knew where Dead End was. Whispering to keep from disturbing Breakdown’s obviously uncomfortable call, the speedster admitted that he didn’t know, and pinged Knock Out with Dead End’s comm frequency, along with his own and Wildrider’s. 

::Dead End, where are you right now? Are you alright?:: 

::Are any of us ever really alright, my dear medic?:: 

Knock Out ex-vented in relief and nodded to Drag Strip, sending him a quick ping to let him know that the fifth Stunticon was still online and in as fine - fatalistic - form as ever. 

::I just wanted to check in on you; Breakdown and I found Wildrider getting beaten in a side corridor earlier this shift. We brought him back to the hab and I repaired him - with some minor assistance from your teammate - but something about the situation seems… off. We’re not sure what happened as of right now.:: 

::I’ll be home in a few kliks. Dead End out.::

Knock Out looked up to see that Breakdown’s call was finished as well. 

“Dead End will be back shortly,” he told the room at large. 

“So will Motormaster,” said Breakdown, “so maybe we can get some answers.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> KO is a maudlin drunk... I'm not sorry.  
> Please leave feedback if you want to!


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some things are explained, and other things are not.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think I'll stick to posting every Sunday, since it's been working well!   
> cw: Knock Out has a bit of a panic attack in this one. Guns are mentioned.

Motomaster and Dead End came home, but they didn’t get any answers. 

Motormaster stomped in, muttered something about getting cornered in the fight and needing to drive away before he got scrapped, then shut himself in his room before Wildrider had finished rebooting his optics. 

Dead End took one look at the scene - Wildrider laid out on the floor with Knock Out and Breakdown kneeling next to him, the three of them splattered with energon and internal fluids and surrounded by medical supplies - and wordlessly walked to the dispenser to get everyone some fuel. Drag Strip bounded over to help him, and the two began whispering quietly. 

Knock Out honestly didn’t know what was going on. He didn’t know how to process anything that had happened during the past shift, really. Best not to worry about it, he decided. Events would become clear with time, or they wouldn’t. Either way, it wasn’t Knock Out’s business. Breakdown might claim to be his friend, but that didn’t mean he needed to get involved in the team’s internal - whatever this was. He clenched his denta and swallowed down the feelings rising in his intake. Knock Out should have known better than to get attached. 

“What’s next, doc?” Breakdown asked quietly. 

“This is the most we can do with these supplies,” Knock Out murmured in reply, “Now he needs to recharge and defrag, let the self-repair do its work.”

“I’ll take him to his berth and meet you in the washracks, then.” 

Knock Out winced at the reminder - his finish was an absolute nightmare. The bodily fluids weren’t nearly as vexing as the scuffs and Primus-be-damned paint transfers. Who did Breakdown think he was, scooping Knock Out up in his arms and holding him in his lap? Cupping his chin and kissing him sweetly? There was an orange streak on Knock Out’s perfect, porcelain faceplate! The audacity was staggering, really. Knock Out’s hands were trembling with - anger, yes, it was anger - as he thought about it. 

Shaking his helm to clear out that train of thought, Knock Out stepped into the washracks and turned on the hot solvent spray. Casually swiping one of Dead End’s high-quality polishing cloths, he got to work buffing blue marks off his white thighs. He’d mostly stopped looking like the cheapest kind of buy-mech when Breakdown walked in. 

“Primus, KO, something about this doesn’t sit right with me,” the blue bot groaned, leaning under the solvent spray. 

“I’m afraid I don’t really understand. It seemed like Motormaster left Wildrider to be beaten by those mechs? Isn’t he part of the team? If nothing else, doesn’t Motormaster need him to keep winning derbies?” 

“I thought he did,” Breakdown ex-vented, “I actually thought he cared about him, too. Sure, Wildrider can be annoying, but he’s been with us for thousands of shifts. I don’t understand why he would leave him behind. There’s no way some random bots they met in a bar were dangerous enough that he couldn’t have beat them if he wanted to.” 

“I wonder if it's my fault,” Knock Out mused, “I don’t think Motormaster likes that I’ve been hanging around with you all.” 

Breakdown let out a blat of static. “Count on you, doc. A mech doesn’t fall for your charming personality and you think it’s some kinda life-changing grudge? I could use a little of that self-confidence.” 

“Well, if not that, then what?” Knock Out asked, a little offended. 

“I don’t know, and I guess we’re not gonna find out tonight. But don’t think I forgot about our talk, either.” 

“Primus, Breakdown, I need to recharge before we get into all of that.” 

“Yeah, same here. I’m just saying that I’m not gonna forget, so.” 

“Alright, alright. I’ll come back and see you after work shift?” 

“What, are you leaving?” 

Knock Out hesitated for a moment. “Yes?” 

“Why don’t you just stay here.” It wasn’t even a question. Breakdown’s tone seemed to say that Knock Out should have known he would be staying over. Which, why? How? Knock Out had never recharged at the Stunticon hab before - though he had run a few stealthy defrag cycles when he thought no one would notice - and he was sure they didn’t have a spare berth. Was the big lug planning to crush Knock Out in beside him? Unacceptable. 

“I just got your paint transfers off, Breakdown. I’m not interested in doing another round of this when we wake up.” 

Breakdown winced. “It's fine, you can take my berth, as long as you don’t mind recharging across from Dead End. I’ll sleep on the couch.” 

Knock Out thought about Breakdown trying to lie down on the couch, which could barely hold him when he was sitting up. Then he thought about trying to recharge there himself, crushing his wings against the back or hanging them over the edge of the seat. 

“Why, thank you Breakdown. That’s a very gallant offer, and I would be pleased to accept.” 

“Yeah, yeah. Anything for you, doc.”

\-- 

Knock Out onlined in bliss. 

Breakdown’s berth was sinfully large, with plenty of contact pads for Knock Out’s systems to link up to and an ambient heating system powerful enough to warm his entire frame. Knock Out couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen his HUD so free of error messages. He stretched, thrilling at the feel of his cables and pistons moving smoothly, as he wandered out to the main room - and nearly smacked into the armoured car parked between the couch and the hallway. 

“Breakdown!” he exclaimed. 

“Ugh. Never again, doc,” Breakdown groaned, pitifully. He rocked on his wheels for a moment before slowly, creakily transforming into root mode. 

“Ooh, that doesn’t sound good.” 

“Doesn’t feel good, either. I almost broke the couch last night, had to give up and recharge in alt. My wheels ache like crazy, you don’t even know.” 

Knock Out stayed silent. 

“Oh slag KO, sorry. I didn’t mean - “ 

“It’s quite alright, Breakdown. In fact, that works rather well as a segue to our discussion. I assume you have questions; ask away.” 

“Uh, yeah so. What are the creds for?” 

“Really?” Knock Out laughed, humourlessly, “That’s what you want to ask about? Not my miraculous lack of transformation sickness or my top-notch illegal processor editing skills?” 

“Look doc, I wanna know whatever you feel like telling about all of that, as your friend. But your safety is the main thing - so tell me that you don’t owe some black market dealer or mob boss, and I’ll feel a lot better about hearing the rest of it.” 

Knock Out shook his helm, walking over to sit on the couch. His earlier sense of euphoria and well-being had faded, and every inch of his frame felt sore. It was mostly psychosomatic, he knew that, but even thinking about his failure of an alt-mode had his wing-joints aching. Breakdown settled next to him - the couch shrieking in protest - and placed a careful servo on his shoulder. Knock Out suppressed the instinctive flinch; he wanted to feel the big mech’s ocean-calm field more than he wanted to avoid more orange-on-red paint transfers. 

“No, Breakdown, I don’t owe anyone money - not yet. I’m trying to save up enough to get a surgeon, any surgeon, to look twice at my case for alt-change surgery.” 

“Alt-change surgery? That’s a thing?” 

“In very rare cases, yes. Some mechs are sparked as flight-frames, but my aerial coding comes from my CNA. My spark-type is flexible enough to accommodate a variety of alt-modes; my deepest base coding is focused on medicine, not on any particular method of locomotion.” 

“So what, you’re saying that you don’t have to be a jet? That’s great - can’t you just scan a ground vehicle mode?” 

“I’m afraid it’s not quite that simple - “ 

“What’s not?” Drag Strip broke in, “Breakdown’s processor? Because that’s pretty simple, I can tell you.” 

“Little lover’s spat for the beginning of the shift?” Wildrider added. “I know my optics were broke last night, but you two seemed awfully cozy then.” 

“Great, you’re up,” Breakdown said dryly, “I’m so glad we worked so hard to keep the two of you online, so you’d be around to interrupt us and make annoying comments.” 

Drag Strip let out a static snort and wandered into Breakdown’s room, presumably to retrieve Dead End. Wildrider just giggled and headed to the dispenser to pour some energon. 

“So whatcha talkin about, anyways? You sure look serious,” Wildrider asked. 

Breakdown looked at Knock Out, clearly leaving the decision of how much to tell the team up to him. The medic sighed and decided to bite the bullet - he’d seen that getting close to one Stunticon meant accepting the rest of them as part of the package. 

“Just about being a flight-frame, and the possibility of not being one. Changing alt-modes is doable, it just takes a lot more money and influence than any of us have,” he explained. 

“Ooh, yeah! Can’t exactly be a plane on a city that’s driving faster than you could fly. It’s ok! I know you’re a newspark, but losing your processor is no big deal. Soon it’ll be crazytown - population you and me. I’m excited!” Wildrider grinned with slightly disturbing sincerity. 

“Yeah but that’s the thing, Wilds,” Breakdown cut in, “he’s not fresh out of the creche like we thought. He’s old!” 

Knock Out froze for a klik before managing to say, “Excuse me?” 

Breakdown winced, opening his mouth - hopefully to apologize again - but Wildrider cut in before he could voice anything. 

“No way BD! If the doc was old, he’d already have gotten all twitchy and his frame wouldn’t work. Even I know that.” 

“Right!” Knock Out said, “Before anyone calls me old again, let’s just accept that I know more about how your processors work than you do, and I know very well how to minimize the symptoms of transformation sickness. There’s really no reason that aerials have to die from the inability to fly - flight simulators and wind tunnels, along with coding patches, would allow most of us to be perfectly functional, if not quite comfortable.” 

“Look doc, I believe you -” Breakdown began. 

“But you don’t have any of those things!” Wildrider interrupted. 

“Are you sparklings finishing each other’s sentences now?” Dead End asked, walking into the main room. He was trailed by Drag Strip, who started to add a witty rejoinder.

Quite suddenly it was all too much for Knock Out. The noise, the confusion, the assumptions - he shut off his audials, and when his frame sensors informed him of Breakdown shifting in his seat, he turned those off too. Knock Out cradled his helm in unfeeling servos and tried to focus on venting. He just - he needed to stay fueled. He needed to make enough money to buy a set of wheels and a new t-cog. He needed to find a surgeon. The rest of this - friendship, having a berth to sleep in and people to worry about - it was all secondary. It wouldn’t matter if he couldn’t stay online. 

Knock Out thought about leaving, but where would he go? Besides, some part of him didn’t want to move, didn’t want to end whatever all of this was. Even with his sensors off, he could feel Breakdown’s EM field, pulsing comfort and worry and apology towards him. 

\--

Eventually, Knock Out managed to online his optics, to find that Breakdown had carried him to the berthroom. They were seated side-by-side, leaning against the wall, with some sort of huge mesh cloth wrapped around them. 

It was strange that Knock Out’s emergency awareness systems hadn’t alerted him to the change in position - even with his sensors off, his coding should have reacted to being picked up by a much larger mech. Unless, of course, his subroutines had tagged Breakdown as a source of safety. Fraggit. Knock Out really was getting in over his helm. He took a moment to vent, then turned said helm to look at the blue bot - Knock Out had assumed he was recharging based on the barely-there steadiness of his field - only to find bright yellow optics looking back at him. 

“Hey, doc. How are you doing?” Breakdown asked. 

Knock Out looked away quickly, claws picking at the weird mesh. “What is this thing, anyway?” he deflected. 

“It’s… it’s a blanket. Y’know, to keep your frame warm while you’re recharging?” 

“That’s what the built-in heating systems in the recharge slab are for, though.” 

“Sure, but those things take power to run - blankets keep you warm for free. Plus, they feel nice, don’t you think?” 

Knock Out thought that the heat of Breakdown’s frame pressing along his side felt even nicer, but supposed the blanket was adequate as well. 

“But doc, you didn’t stress-out in there earlier because you didn’t know what a blanket was,” Breakdown continued, “c’mon, talk to me.” 

“Sorry,” Knock Out muttered. 

“You don’t have to apologize. Isn’t this all good news?” 

“Good news? What do you mean.” 

“Look KO, this whole time we’ve been getting closer and becoming friends, I’ve been sad and worried because I knew that at some point you were gonna start getting sick and there would be no way for me or anyone else to help you feel better. 

“Then I was happy because you weren’t going to get sky-sick, except that you owed money to the gangs or something, and instead I was going to have to watch you get beat down until you found a way to pay them off. 

“But now, I know that actually you’re just a dramatic dumbaft and all you need is a bit more money and you’ll be able to live as long as any of us. What part of that isn’t good news?” 

Knock Out felt his optics widen, “I never thought about it like that before.” 

“Yeah doc, because you’re a self-centered little fragger. Good thing I like you anyway.” 

“So we’re friends?” Knock Out asked, tentatively.

“Yeah. And as your friend, I want you to tell me why you were freaking out earlier, so that I can make sure it doesn’t happen again.” 

“I - I suppose I don’t really know. There was just so much happening, and I felt like I couldn’t explain - and no one ever believes me. That there’s nothing inherently wrong with flight-frames, I mean. People see a pair of wings and they assume that you’ve got scraplets in your helm in place of a processor. But it’s not - it doesn’t have to be like that.” 

“Listen doc, I believe you. People have always thought that my head was even slower than my engine - there’s a reason that the best way I’ve got to make creds is fighting in illegal derbies. And really, I’m surprised that more bots can’t relate - if there’s one thing we’ve got in common down here, it’s knowing that a mech’s worth doesn’t come from winning car-races. Who’s been telling you otherwise?” 

“Quickpulse, at the clinic. Um… the mentors in the creche, when they found out that I was going to be a flier and stopped teaching me medicine.” 

“KO, are you saying that you haven’t talked to anyone but your boss since you were a newspark?” 

“I’ve been busy trying to save my plating, Breakdown!”

“Well, not anymore. You’ve got me and the rest of the Stunties, and I guarantee that once I explain the situation to them, they’re gonna want to help too.” 

“Help? With what?” 

“Getting you creds, what else? You might not know it, but there are better ways to make money than your slaggy pick-pocketing skills.” Breakdown laughed. 

“Excuse you! I am an excellent pick pocket!” Knock Out exclaimed indignantly. 

“Yeah, whatever doc. I’m pretty sure most mechs just let you take their creds because they like getting groped by you.” 

Knock Out shrieked and slapped Breakdown with his end of the blanket. 

\-- 

Knock Out ambled through the corridor, enjoying the unusual feeling of warmth in his spark and in his frame. The mysterious wonders of blankets, plus two detailing sessions in as many shifts, would do that to a mech, he supposed. He’d really needed that second wash and polish after the impromptu slap-fight with Breakdown - which he had absolutely won, thank you - had left him covered with orange and blue streaks. 

Now he was heading to his work shift with his finish looking perfect, and his chest filled with a tingling sensation that he didn’t know how to identify. The usual looks and whispering stung less, and the ping informing him that he was late didn’t worry him. He palmed the door sensor, nodded at Quickpulse, and let himself into the disassembly bay. 

He got to work on grey frame number one; vent infection with complications, another example of a bot who could have been saved by some level of basic medical care. A fair amount of the tubing could be reused after decontamination, and the fuel pump looked alright. Knock Out let his servos follow the familiar motions of dissection - it was unlikely that this leaker had any surprises for him. Just in case, he slipped his hand into the frame’s subspace. Feeling around, he found the usual trash; energon candy wrappers, free info download cards, and wait - something curved and hard? Oh Primus, please don’t let it be a used interfacing toy, Knock Out thought, pulling the item free. 

He looked down at his servo, then rebooted his optics a few times. When the object in his hand failed to transform into something more comprehensible - Primus, why couldn’t it have been an interfacing toy - he ran a processor diagnostic. But no, Knock Out was perceiving reality as much as any mech ever did. And yes, that was a gun he was holding. 

Frag! Knock Out hadn’t actually seen an energy weapon in person before, but this one had lit up at his touch, and he had the feeling that he wouldn’t like what happened if he pulled the trigger. He considered throwing it in the incinerator for a moment, but the memory of Wildrider’s bleeding frame flickered behind his eyes, and instead he carefully tucked the gun in his subspace.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so yeah this has been a ... tragically falling for someone with a terminal illness story... from Breakdown's pov - until now


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dead End and Knock Out go shopping! Breakdown isn't sure how he feels about that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw: it's vaguely implied that KO has been a sex worker a couple times in this chapter.

A handful of shifts later, Knock Out was at work again. Another day, another quarter ration, he thought to himself, sardonically. It wasn’t as true as it had once been, though. He’d switched his pay to creds instead of energon when he’d realized that the Stunticons genuinely didn’t mind giving him free food every time he went over. Making the switch was a trade-off, same as anything; if he took creds, he got a little extra because he didn’t have to pay the surcharge - if he took energon, he could pour it down his intake before anyone could steal it. 

It was undeniably strange to think that keeping his tank full was no longer the daily struggle it had once been. Instead, he spent his time dealing with things like Wildrider’s constant stream of minor injuries, Drag Strip’s stubborn resistance to Knock Out’s suggestions about his paint job, and - ah yes, random Stunticons wandering into his disassembly bay. 

“What can I do for you today, Dead End?” Knock Out asked. Dead End spent another few moments staring at Knock Out’s cadavers and energon stained hands, with an expression that Knock Out was fairly sure he’d be happier not interpreting, before replying. 

“The question, dear doctor, is what can I do for you?” 

“Um. Alright. What?” 

“I can take you someplace even more wonderful than where we are right now - the mod shop.” 

“Okay, passing right over that first part - what would be the point? They don’t sell mods for airframes, and even if they did, I wouldn’t be able to afford any.” 

“Well, I mainly need to obtain detailing supplies for myself, but I noticed that you were running low on that newspark-brand wax that you like. I respect that it’s premature to buy a new tin of wax before the old one is gone - no way of knowing if you’ll be online to use it, of course - but I thought we could combine our efforts and visit the shop together.” 

“I… see. I confess that I usually get my wax from ah, less reputable sources, shall we say.” Knock Out shifted his pedes, unwilling to elaborate, but the way that Dead End’s optics sharpened showed that he had gotten Knock Out’s drift. 

“It’s your decision, of course,” Dead End assured, “but I don’t see any reason that you need to continue those methods of procurement unless you wish to.” 

“I suppose I was just thinking about how much things are changing,” Knock Out replied. “Alright, couldn’t hurt to see what they have on offer. When are we leaving?” 

“Whenever you’re ready.” 

“I’ll just finish up here and wash my hands, then. Oh, and Dead End,” Knock Out called over his shoulder, “will Breakdown be coming with us?” 

\--

“We are not attached at the hip-joint!” 

“Please, Knock Out, there’s no need to pretend. I think this is the first time I’m seeing you without a big, blue shadow.” 

“Listen, I only asked about Breakdown because you Stunticons spend all your time together! I do plenty of things by myself.” 

“Name one thing you did in the past dozen shifts without Breakdown, other than going to work,” Dead End challenged. 

“I went to work!” Knock Out exclaimed. 

“Other than going to work, I said!” Dead End returned. Knock Out wasn’t sure he’d ever seen the morose mech quite this animated before. It was a nice change, even if it was caused by mercilessly teasing Knock Out.

“Working counts!” Knock Out sniped, picking up speed. They were in a part of the Undercarriage that he hadn’t had much reason to visit before. He supposed that it was the commercial district, strictly speaking, but few things down here had ended up like the original designers had intended. He and Dead End were walking past mainly brothels, bulk and single-serve energon houses, and shops that looked like fronts for gambling operations. A little fancier that he was used to, maybe, but still homey. 

“Working does not count, because Breakdown couldn’t accompany you even if you wanted him to. It only counts if you’re apart by choice.” Dead End broke into Knock Out’s train of thought. 

“I could bring him to work if I wanted to,” Knock Out muttered, pouting. 

“Well, you’ve really got the sparkling attitude down, anyway.” 

Dead End was a rude, rude mech and Knock Out didn’t know why he had deigned to accompany him on this little outing. He started to say as much as he followed Dead End through an unmarked door, but was cut off by an optic-full of dazzling shine. 

“Primus,” Knock Out whispered, “what is this place?” 

“As I told you,” Dead End said. His superior tone was unacceptable, but Knock Out was too busy to reply; he’d caught sight of a holo-image of the most beautiful car he’d ever seen. 

Knock Out walked forward until he was practically overlapping with the display. The car was sleek; its curves seductively suggested speed and power. Knock Out could tell that the alt would translate nicely to root mode as well - never a guarantee, some cars looked fantastic on four wheels but hideous on two legs - with paneling that would accentuate a mech’s shoulders and detailed doors that would display nicely along the forearms. 

Knock Out wanted it; not just abstractly, but for his own body. He’d spent plenty of time thinking about how lovely it would be to not have to be a jet - beyond the obvious lifespan issues, his frame had never felt right. There was always that itch in his wings, the sensation that even if he could get airborne again, it wouldn’t be enough. That had always overshadowed the part of his spark that wanted to move, to feel the air on his plating and the thrum of his engine. But now, looking at this car, Knock Out realized that the two didn’t have to go together - even without his jet alt, he could still be fast. 

He pulled up the display’s specs, and yes - just like Drag Strip’s frame, parts of the design were superfluous, redundant or too-heavy. He could cut away the plate here, lighten the struts there, reshape this curve - all in all, Knock Out thought that he could improve the car’s top speed by five or six percent. And Primus, it was tempting. With a frame like that, he could do more than put up a decent showing at a job interview contest - he could win a real, significant race. The kind that could open up futures that he hadn’t dared to hope for. 

Knock Out was almost glad when Dead End’s servo on his arm interrupted the processing tree; much more of that rampant speculation and he’d have crashed. 

“See something you like?” Dead End asked. 

“Whoever designed this clearly didn’t understand aerodynamics,” Knock Out sniffed, “though with a few tweaks the overall idea might be acceptable.” 

“I’ll admit, you would look very striking as a racer. I think we had all assumed you would be looking for an ambulance alt-mode, when the time came,” Dead End said, looking slightly disappointed. Maybe he had a thing for ambulances? Weird, but that was kind of par for the course when it came to the most dejected Stunticon. 

“No, I’m afraid that’s not an option for me. Ambulance alts are for real doctors, with built-in spark monitoring, temperature and vent diagnostics; all the equipment in a medic’s hands is expressed in the patient compartment of their alt mode. Of course, all I have in my hands are tools for taking people apart, and my spark can’t support a large frame. If I was lucky, I’d be a big cargo plane or something, so I could reframe as a truck like Breakdown, and at least be able to act as an emergency transport. I’ll be able to add some mass to this little jet body, but I’ll never be roomy enough to carry someone larger than a cassette,” Knock Out explained. 

To be honest, he wasn’t really upset about it. Sure, he’d cut off his pedes for decent medic hands, but ambulances were so… blocky. People said a lot of things about flight frames, but no one could deny that they looked gorgeous. The glint in Dead End’s optics seemed to say that he saw right through Knock Out’s reasoning, too. Hm! What was so bad about wanting to look good, anyway? 

“Well, you’ve delayed the inevitable for my team members often enough that none of us could doubt you’re a medic, equipment or no equipment,” Dead End said, “but I think we had best purchase what we came for and depart. I’d like a chance to get one last wax in, at least.” 

“A last wax? Before what?” Knock Out asked, giving the holo-car one last longing look before following the Stunticon over to the cleaning and polishing display. 

Dead End didn’t reply, but Knock Out’s gaze was drawn away before he could ask again. Another treasure in this shop of wonders; a perfect, matched set of gold rims. He had a tin of gold detailing paint in one of his caches - he’d been saving it for a special occasion - that was that shade exactly. Knock Out imagined the colour accenting his frame, perhaps some of the flared planting at his major joints, with those wheels to tie the look together - Primus! Just when he’d thought his paint couldn’t get any more perfect, he went and came up with an idea like that. 

Knock Out sidled over to the wheel display, and winced when he saw the price tag. If he bought those rims, he could forget about buying a new t-cog anytime soon. There was nothing wrong with simply borrowing one from a grey frame at the recycling clinic, of course, but the theft would be rather difficult to cover up. Quickpulse had been more than a little suspicious about the rust infection story he’d used to get Breakdown out; Knock Out couldn’t risk another lie like that. 

No, the smart thing to do would be to save a little longer, then buy a cheap set of wheels and a lightly used t-cog at the same time. Knock Out ex-vented, forlorn, and turned in time to intercept Dead End’s hard stare. 

\--

“No alt modes in the corridors, afthole!” a random passerby yelled. 

“Hey crazy-jet, tell your buddy to fraggin’ transform already,” another bot shouted from a stoop. 

Knock Out ignored them, prancing in the wake of Dead End’s revving engine and honking horn. Dead End, an absolute prince of a bot, who had not only bought Knock Out the wheels of his dreams, but was carrying them home in his vehicle mode’s storage compartment. Sure, mechs technically weren’t supposed to drive outside of designated tracks, but how else were they supposed to transport the goods? Pay for a delivery-bot? Not a chance.

By the time they arrived at the Stunticon hab, they’d destroyed two full-sized sheet metal cut-outs of famous racers, knocked over a display of false spikes, and nearly killed a minibot. All in all, a successful trip. 

“Are you planning to help me unload these?” Dead End asked, rocking back and forth on his wheels. 

“Hmm, no,” Knock Out replied, “but I will go inside and find someone else to do it.” 

He matched his actions to his words and walked through the door - when had the Stunticons added his palm-scan to the security system, anyway? - and looked around. Motormaster wasn’t in, thankfully; Knock Out might not have been willing to scratch his paint unloading things, but that didn’t mean he was eager to interact with the grumpy hauler. No Drag Strip or Wildrider, either but - yes - Breakdown was in recharge in his room. 

Knock Out considered the blue bot’s softly-venting form, an unusual sense of playfulness welling up in his chest. After a moment he leaned over, reached out and dragged two of his claws down the unlikely ticklish spot he’d discovered a few shifts earlier; Breakdown’s chin guard. The big mech twitched, then - just as Knock Out was about to start laughing - sat bolt upright. Clang! Their helms smacked together, hard. 

“Primus, what in the pit🙺” Breakdown yelled. 

Knock Out groaned. Somehow during the collision he’d ended up sitting on his aft on the floor. He rubbed his aching forehead, optics rebooting. 

“What’s going on in there?” Dead End’s voice came through the doors between them, faintly. “Knock Out, you lazy fragger, did you fall into bed with Breakdown already? Get out here and unload these!” 

“Doc?” Breakdown looked down at Knock Out from the recharge slab. “What are you doing on the floor? What just happened?”

“Primus hates me, that’s what. I’m going to need a dent-puller to fix this - and can you please go help Dead End?” 

Breakdown cycled a vent, briefly opened and closed his mouth, and then wordlessly walked out of the room. 

\--

“What I’m saying is that I got you a job.” 

“I already have a job, Breakdown. Slicing and dicing dead frames? It's how we met, remember?” 

“He has a point, Breakdown,” Dead End added, helpfully. 

“Yeah, thanks, that’s enough from the rust-stick gallery - I’m trying to talk to the doc,” Breakdown huffed. 

Dead End rolled his optics. “It’s my wash rack too.” 

“You’re not even washing! I feel like we spend way too much time in here ever since Knock Out started coming around.” 

“Maybe you should be grateful that I raised your standards,” Knock Out sniffed, “Cleanliness is next to Primeliness, after all.” 

“Ugh, you guys are distracting me again! KO listen - a bunch of bots I know saw you save Drag Strip’s life that one time, and when they heard that you basically brought me back from the dead, they all wanted to meet you. All I’m saying is, come out to the next derby and maybe replace a couple of joints or fix some of these guys’ circuits - they can definitely pay better than your afthole boss, and it's not like it’ll take long. We’re still trying to find you legit ways of making extra creds, right? Or is Dead End bankrolling you now?” 

“Well, I’m done washing, so I’m just going to go,” Dead End muttered, sidling out the door. 

“What are you trying to say here, Breakdown?” Knock Out asked sharply. 

“I’m not sayin’ anything. Just that, you know, I offered you creds before and you said that you didn’t want to take any charity. You got a little trading goin’ on with my teammate, or what?” 

“You needn’t worry, Breakdown; I haven’t touched your precious teammate. And frankly, I don’t know why he bought me those wheels, but I assumed it was the kind of thing that friends did for each other. Was I wrong? Is it ok for you to slum it with me, but not for the rest of the Stunticons to do the same?” Knock Out pulled back from the larger bot’s hands - his helm-crest still needed to be waxed and polished, but he could do that himself. Eventually. When his plating stopped rattling and his servos stopped shaking. 

“KO, you know that’s not what I meant,” Breakdown said, reaching out to pull him back in. “But you’ve gotta think about the scale - a set of wheels is a lot pricier than a cube of high grade, you know? I just don’t want anyone to take advantage of you.” 

“What, first you’re worried that I’m corrupting Dead End, and now you think he’s the one taking advantage of me? Where is this even coming from?” 

There was an awkward pause, then: “You usually come right home after your work shift,” Breakdown said, looking away. 

Knock Out rebooted his optics. “I don’t live here. You know that, right?” 

“Well, maybe you should.” 

“Why, so that you can keep an eye on me?” Knock Out hissed.

“Is it such a bad thing that I worry about you?” Breakdown shot back, defensively. 

“If it’s because you think I’m running around seducing miscellaneous Stunticons, then yes!” 

Breakdown ex-vented heavily. “That isn’t what I think. I’m sorry, ok? I was worried because I didn’t know where you were, and then I got mad that you let Dead End buy things for you, when you didn’t let me do the same.” 

“I don’t know, Breakdown. I don’t know what you think of me, if those are the kind of assumptions you’re going to make anytime I’m out of your sight for a couple of kliks.” 

“KO please. I didn’t think you were sleeping with Dead End, or sucking his spike or whatever it is you’re worried about. I just thought you… liked him more than me,” Breakdown mumbled. 

“Wait, what?” Knock Out asked. 

“Look, I know I’ve pushed this being friends thing pretty hard. But I get it if you don’t like me, or if you like Dead End and Drag Strip and everyone else more. There’s no reason to hang around with me when there’s a bunch of shiny racers out for your attention. But I just. I like you a lot, Knock Out. I’m sorry. I can back off.” 

“Breakdown, I know I’m new at this whole being friends thing, but are you hanging around with me because I’m pretty and fast? I mean, I am pretty, and I was fast back when I could transform, but I didn’t think that was the reason that you liked me,” Knock Out said. 

“It’s not!” Breakdown exclaimed. 

“And are you planning to stop being friends with me if someone newer and more exciting comes along?” 

“No!” 

“Well then, why would you think that I would do the same?” Knock Out asked. Checkmate, Breakdown. And Knock Out didn’t even have to get emotional. He was great at this friendship thing already. 

Breakdown’s vents hitched - Knock Out got ready for him to say something like ‘oh you’re so right, doc’ - and then he let out a soft sob. Wait, what? 

“I know that’s not how it works, doc. Even if you like someone, that’s no guarantee that they care about you.” Breakdown rested his helm in his hands, shoulders shaking. 

“No guarantee that I care about you,” Knock Out said, “that’s what you mean, right?” 

Breakdown just kept venting raggedly. Knock Out shifted with indecision for a moment before wrapping his arms - carefully, he’d just finished polishing - around the larger mech. He tucked his still-scraped helm against Breakdown’s, and spoke softly.

“Do you know, Dead End asked me today to name one time in the last dozen shifts that I chose to be apart from you? And I couldn’t think of one. I’m not spending all that time with you just because you’ve got a nice shower and you give me free food. I - I like you, Breakdown. I like your dumb sense of humour, and I like that you keep dragging me around to places, and I like that you don’t think I’m just some crazy jet. You’re the first mech I’ve met who really sees me as a person. If hanging out with you means that I also get to know your team, then that’s alright, but it isn’t the main reason that I’m here. You’re my friend, and I’m your friend too. Ok?”

“Really?” Breakdown sniffed.

“Yes, really,” Knock Out sniffed back. 

“Do you wanna come live here?” Breakdown asked. 

“Let’s talk about it after we recharge, ok?” Knock Out offered, holding him tighter. 

“Yeah, ok,” Breakdown replied, reaching out and hugging him back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> idc if you're a 20ft tall metal robot - unloading the winter tires is the worst job.   
> also, apologies for two 'then they sat around and talked' chapters in a row ;-;


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Why are you passing out?” Breakdown asked, looking concerned. 
> 
> “For my new super-speedy frame surgery, duh! You both really need to get on my level,” Drag Strip rolled his eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw: there is violence in this chapter that the characters interpret as attempted non-con. let me know if you need more info.

“Knock Out? What are you doing on the floor?” Drag Strip asked. 

“Recharging, obviously,” Knock Out replied. 

In fact, Knock Out had attempted to recharge on the couch after he and Breakdown had finished talking, and it had been every bit as uncomfortable as he’d imagined. After spending some time tossing, turning and trying to get his wings situated, he’d given up and curled in a corner - terrible for his finish, but there was something comforting about offlining his optics surrounded by the hard surfaces and grime that he was used to. 

Still, if Breakdown thought that he was moving into the Stunticon hab just to sleep on their floor, the blue buffoon could think again. Knock Out had lots of floors he could sleep on without judgement from mechs with hideous paintjobs - one of whom was still standing there, staring at him like he was some kind of organic body-snatcher. 

“Okay, you weirdo, whatever,” Drag Strip shrugged. “So - I wanna do it.” 

Knock Out stiffened, but managed to ask smoothly: “And what might ‘it’ be?” 

“Doc! The making-me-super-fast surgery, obviously. Speedster’s Night is coming ‘round again, and I think if I was fast like you said I could take everyone out!” 

Drag Strip stuck a hand out, and Knock Out grabbed it to pull himself up. 

“Well, alright then. I do think you’re making the right choice. And consider - while you’re unconscious, I could give you a less optic-searing paintjob,” Knock Out offered. 

“No! Knock Out - you wouldn’t. You know yellow is my whole brand. You wouldn’t dare.” 

“Wouldn’t I?” Knock Out challenged. 

“What would or wouldn’t you do?” Breakdown asked as he walked in, still rubbing sleep out of his optics. 

“Breakdown, your medic is threatening to change my paint when I’m passed out! You have to protect me,” Drag Strip whined. 

“Why are you passing out?” Breakdown asked, looking concerned. 

“For my new super-speedy frame surgery, duh! You both really need to get on my level,” Drag Strip rolled his eyes. 

“Whatever, mech,” Breakdown sighed, “You had energon yet, KO?” 

“Not yet,” Knock Out answered, “but I suppose we’d better fuel quickly if Drag Strip wants to get started now.” 

“Now? Like now-now?” Drag Strip asked apprehensively.

“I assumed that was what you wanted?” Knock Out had already begun finalizing the plans for the speedster’s new and improved frame on his HUD.

“You’re planning to just cut me open in the middle of the living room?” Drag Strip shrieked.

“Are you under the impression that I have a clinic, Drag Strip? A fully stocked med-bay? It’s here or at the recycling centre, and honestly, you’re less likely to get a rust infection if we do it here.” 

Breakdown laughed a little. “I think we’ve still got that old engex-pong table around here somewhere - it’s held your weight before, Drag Strip. We could set it up in the washracks? Make for easier clean-up, at least.” 

“An excellent idea, Breakdown. If you’ll get the operating room set up, I’ll finish this design, and we should be ready to go in a couple kliks,” Knock Out said, clapping his servos together briskly. 

“Primus help me,” Drag Strip moaned. 

\--

“So I know we got a bit off track last time I tried to ask you about this, but are you interested in fixing up some demo-bots that I know after the next derby?” Breakdown asked. 

“Hmm, I hadn’t really - hold this energon-line, please - I hadn’t really thought about it,” Knock Out replied. He started up his buzzsaw and carefully carved away a portion of Drag Strip’s thigh-plating. 

“I’m just saying, you’re doing this for free - why not make some creds, you know?” 

“I’m doing this because Drag Strip’s frame is currently an aesthetic disaster. And also to keep him from getting killed, I suppose. Pass me that laser-cutter, would you?” 

“Here,” Breakdown said, handing over the tool. 

“Great, if you could just move your other servo - there, hold that,” Knock Out pressed down on the back of Breakdown’s fingers. “I suppose if you’re going to be dragging me along to your derbies anyway, I should try to get something out of it.” 

“You’re already getting to hang out with me! Do you want the heavy welder, next?” 

“No, first we need to - I can’t quite see from this angle. Do you think you can take one more millimeter off that plate there?” 

“Sure yeah, just give me your arm - there we go.” 

Breakdown’s hands really were impressively steady, Knock Out thought. It was surprising that he could achieve such delicacy with those thick, heavy fingers. There was something oddly appealing about the way that he wrapped his servo around Knock Out’s arm and gently guided his buzzsaw through the plating, the lingering warmth of his touch - no. Surgery was not the time for such thoughts. Really, Breakdown was to blame for his distraction, with his confessions of caring and friendship, making Knock Out feel these warm, shaky feelings in his spark. No, it was best to keep his mind on the task at hand - or at saw, as the case may be. 

“Would you reattach these lines?” Knock Out asked, “I’ll get started on his other leg.” 

“Sure thing, doc. Should I tell people you’ll be around at the next event to patch them up, then?” Breakdown asked. 

“May as well,” Knock Out replied, nonchalantly tossing a piece of metal onto the growing pile of scrap in the corner. 

“Cool. Hey, KO?” 

“Yes?” Knock Out asked, still mostly ignoring Breakdown in favour of re-routing the nerve-circuits under his hands. 

“Did Motormaster say anything to you or Drag Strip about doing this operation?” the big bot asked, with something oddly hesitant in his voice. 

“Not that I’m aware of, though he hardly ever talks to me. Did he even know that Drag Strip was planning to do this?” 

“I think so? I mean, we talked about it in front of him. But he didn’t say anything then, either. It’s just weird, because usually he’s super against us adding any mods or even drinking booster fuel. He always says that kind of stuff is going to throw us off our game or give us a tank infection - he says that fixing something that isn’t broke is a good way to get scrapped.” 

“Well, maybe he just has faith in my superior medical knowledge?” 

“I guess.” 

\--

“Knock Out! You didn’t tell me I’d be sexy!” Drag Strip yelled. He’d onlined kliks before, and instantly demanded to see a mirror. 

“You’re so sexy Drags! I wanna lick you all over!” Wildrider hyped. 

“Primus, he really does look good. Look at all those curves,” Dead End sighed. 

“Drag Strip is beautiful no matter what size his frame is, guys,” Breakdown said firmly. 

“Hmm, not bad, but you look a little unfinished. I’d recommend re-scanning your alt mode, to properly integrate your new design with the transformation sequence. You’ll be able to feel the increase in speed and agility right away - you should probably spend some time practicing to get used to the new handling,” Knock Out instructed. 

“I’m gonna go practice right now! You coming, Wilds?” 

“Pit yeah!” 

“Just be careful! Your self repair is still working - “ Knock Out called after the two speedsters as they raced out the door. 

“They’re definitely not going to be careful,” Dead End said. 

“I just hope he doesn’t think that I’m going to fix him if he destroys all my hard work on that frame.” Knock Out sighed, “It's a damn shame we had to leave it yellow.” 

Dead End’s commiseration and Breakdown’s laughing response were cut off by the sharp sound of Motormaster’s bedroom door slamming open. The bot himself stormed out, snapping his fingers toward the little group of Stunticons plus Knock Out in the living room. 

“Dead End. With me,” Motormaster growled, walking past without looking at anyone.

“Well, it was nice knowing you both,” Dead End muttered, following Motormaster out the front door and into the corridor. 

Knock Out looked back and forth between Motormaster’s room and the doorway a few times, trying to process what had just happened. When he glanced to the side, Breakdown was doing the same thing. 

“Is that the standard way for Motormaster to request someone’s presence?” Knock Out inquired.

“Yeah, no, I was just gonna ask you if you thought it was weird,” Breakdown said. 

“It was weird,” Knock Out confirmed. He tried and failed to suppress a growing sense of unease. He could feel the twinges of his locked-down flight coding trying to ping him, telling him to move. Knock Out reminded himself that even if something was wrong, the team’s internal affairs were none of his business - but the growing concern in Breakdown’s optics was difficult to ignore. 

Well, perhaps it was fate; he’d come between three Stunticons and Mortilus’ dark grasp already. Might as well make it four - not that he had any reason to suspect the situation was that dire, of course. But he couldn’t shake the feeling that, well, something wasn’t right. Dead End’s habitual pessimism was getting to him, perhaps. Knock Out shook his helm sharply, and Breakdown nodded back. 

“I think we should go after them,” the bigger bot said. 

“Please, lead the way,” the medic replied, following Breakdown out the door. 

As they hustled down the corridor together, Knock Out was pulled between the desire to run after Dead End - to get there before it was too late - and the realization that he was overreacting, that there was probably nothing wrong. Breakdown led, following the maze of hallways down and in, toward the back alleys and abandoned tunnels; Knock Out agreed with the instinct, even it made more sense for Dead End and Motormaster to be going to some sort of - meeting, or - or something, in the more populated areas of the Undercarriage. 

They had just passed a shadowed cul-de-sac when Knock Out heard the ringing scrape of a mech’s plating hitting another’s frame. He touched Breakdown’s servo lightly, and gestured toward the darkened area. Breakdown nodded, nudged Knock Out behind him, and stepped forward, flicking his headlights on. 

The sudden illumination washed over grey, black and red paint, picking out a large mech pressing a smaller one into the wall. Motormaster had one hand over Dead End’s mouth, and the other pinning the speedster’s wrist. The convoy half-turned to look at Breakdown and Knock Out, but made no move to let go of his teammate. 

After a beat of silence, Breakdown let out an awkward snort. “If you guys wanted to ‘face, you could have done it at home,” he said. 

“Yes, well, forgive us for trying to spice things up,” Dead End laughed lightly, “but the mood is rather ruined, now. Come, Knock Out, darling - I’ll need your help getting rid of these scrapes.” The speedster slid casually out of Motormaster’s hold, and skipped forward to twine his finger’s with Knock Out’s. Once Dead End had a good grip, he all but dragged the medic away. 

Knock Out glanced at Dead End, and started opening his mouth to say something - probably along the lines of ‘what in the pit was that’ - but was quickly silenced by the other mech’s vicious glare and sharply tightened servo. Instead Knock Out busied himself trying not to stumble over his own thrusters as Dead End pulled him through the corridors. 

::Breakdown:: Knock Out commed frantically ::Keep up! I swear if you aren’t right behind me when we get back home, you’re not going to like the consequences:: 

::Doc, I need to talk to Motormaster::

::Not alone you don’t! If you think that conversation is happening without the rest of the Stunticons and me in the room for backup, you can think again::

::Backup? KO, I don’t know what you think is gonna happen. I don’t even know what I think is gonna happen. Nothing about this makes any sense:: 

::I don’t know either, and I don’t care, okay, Breakdown? I didn’t live this long by ignoring things that felt wrong, and everything about this feels wrong. So just - catch! up!:: 

::Ok, ok. I’ll be right behind you::

\--

Eventually Knock Out, Dead End and Breakdown made it home. They locked themselves in the berthroom and huddled together on the recharge slab, with Knock Out and Breakdown carefully bracketing Dead End’s trembling frame. After some time venting together in silence, Breakdown spoke up. 

“You wanna tell us what happened, Dee? Or just sit for a bit longer?” 

“I want to tell you, but I don’t know what to say.” Dead End pressed his face into Breakdown’s neck and shook his head helplessly.

“Just try to walk us through it,” Knock Out suggested, stroking between the speedster’s shoulder wheels. “Did Motormaster say anything to you after you left the hab?” 

“Yes, actually. He got really philosophical; asked me what I was living for and what the point of life was. I, of course, told him that there was no point, and that our inevitable smelting was coming whether we were ready for it or not. Existence is utterly meaningless. He - oddly, because usually he just ignores me or laughs it off when I try to explain reality to him - agreed. He said that I should be grateful that I wouldn’t have to worry about any of that for much longer.” 

“Like, because he was gonna blow your mind with a great overload or something?” Breakdown asked incredulously. 

Knock Out winced. He really hoped not. 

“No, I - I don’t think so. It was strange. He wanted to hardline,” Dead End shuddered. 

“That is weird, Motormaster usually hates hardlining,” Breakdown said. 

“I know, and more than that, I didn’t get the sense that he was actually interested in interfacing with me. I tried asking him why and what was going on, and that’s when he pulled me into that cul-de-sac and pinned me to the wall.” 

“To plug into you?” Breakdown whispered, horrified. 

“I don’t think so?” Dead End’s voice shook. “He actually said something like ‘we’ll do this the hard way, then’ and started reaching into his subspace. That’s when you arrived.” 

“But what does that mean?” Knock Out asked. 

Dead End and Breakdown both shook their heads. It didn’t make sense to them either. They sat in silence for a little while longer. Knock Out wasn’t sure what to say or do - he wanted to help Dead End, but he couldn’t stop feeling like this was somehow his fault. 

“Something weird has been going on with Motormaster,” Breakdown said eventually. “He left Wildrder in the middle of a fight, he didn’t say anything about Drag Strip’s surgery, and now this - whatever this was. Are you sure it wasn’t about ‘facing, Dee?” 

“When he got close to me, he wasn’t charged up at all. If anything his field felt determined? Determined - and almost desperate. Like it was the start of a race that he really didn’t want to lose,” Dead End replied. 

Knock Out sighed, curling closer to Dead End’s back. He opened his mouth to express his confusion once again, but before he could speak his comm pinged. He pulled up the alert on his HUD, surprised - two of the four people who had his frequency were in the room with him, and he expected the other two were still busy. It would be strange if Drag Strip and Wildrider were taking a break from racing practice already - those bots could drive circles around each other for back-to-back shifts if nobody interrupted them. 

Maybe Drag Strip had damaged his new frame in spite of Knock Out’s warning? The yellow bolt-head would not like the consequences if he had to re-do those lovely curved thighs, Knock Out thought to himself, still prodding at the alert and trying to get the chat to open. But no - it wasn’t a typical comm; someone had sent Knock Out a formal long-form text. Bizarre. He hadn’t seen one of those since he’d moved to the Undercarriage and stopped receiving government communications. 

He opened the letter, scanning quickly to the signature. Motormaster? 

\--

Dear Doctor Knock Out, 

I am writing to you to apologize for my recent actions. Your presence in my household has brought nothing but good things to my team, and I am in your debt for the medical care you provided to Breakdown, Drag Strip and Wildrider. I fear that your charming personality and significant skillset have intimidated me, and the ease with which you befriended my team caused me to feel inadequate in comparison. I have been a jealous and unreasonable mech, and I would like to make things right between us. 

It is my understanding that you are seeking life-saving medical care yourself, and are in need of a good surgeon to assist with your alt-mode change. As a token of my sincerity, please allow me to suggest the clinic of a medic who comes highly recommended by my superiors. If you are amenable, I will procure a suitable t-cog and schedule an appointment for you at your earliest convenience. If you would allow me to do this small thing for you, I feel that it would go some way toward healing the rift - which has been wholly caused by my own actions - between us, and allow our relationship to set its wheels on a new path. 

Please contact me and let me know your answer when you are able. Thank you for your attention to this matter, and I look forward to a new and productive partnership between us when you are settled in your new frame. 

Sincerely,  
Motormaster

P.S. I would also like to apologize for the unseemly scene that you stumbled upon between myself and Dead End recently. I will strive to remember that some things are better kept in the berthroom in the future.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Knock Out makes a questionable decision.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw: discussion of the events of last chapter, medical procedures  
> This one is a little long, and contains a Lot of unfiltered Knock Out pov

Knock Out must have read the letter five or six times before it made any real impression on his processor; the whole thing was so hard to reconcile. On one wheel - vindication. Motormaster was acting oddly because of Knock Out’s presence, just as he’d predicted. Take that, Breakdown! Baseless arrogance his aft. On the other wheel, nothing he knew about the grey convoy had led Knock Out to think that he could read unassisted, much less compose a letter of apology like some sort of third-rate corporate bureaucrat. But on yet another wheel - the promise of surgery and a free t-cog was seriously tempting. Of course, the final wheel was that it seemed a little too good to be true. 

After a moment, he decided to forward the letter to Breakdown and Dead End. Maybe their boss had extensive medical connections and liked formal communication. Who was Knock Out to judge, really? 

“What in the pit is this?” Breakdown muttered, optics flicking back and forth as he read. 

“Did someone hack Motormaster’s comm?” Dead End asked. 

“All the metadata looks legitimate, but I’m certainly not an expert,” Knock Out offered. 

“Well I can tell you right now that Motormaster didn’t write this - hacked or not. I doubt he even knows half of these words,” Dead End said. 

“I don’t even know half of these words,” Breakdown agreed. 

“But real or not, why would anyone offer me surgery and t-cog? What would they get out of that?” Knock Out puzzled. 

“I dunno, but I’m pretty sure they’re trying to con you,” Breakdown said. 

“Yes, but how? What’s the trick?” Knock Out persisted. “The letter doesn’t mention paying for anything up front, and even if they hit me with a big bill afterwards, that’s not any different than what I was expecting. As long as I wake up as a car, it's a win.”

“If you wake up at all,” Dead End pointed out. 

Knock Out winced, and Breakdown nodded. That was fair. Though Knock Out wasn’t actually very hard to kill, if somebot was determined - there was no need for this sort of elaborate trick. He’d be the first to admit that his defensive skills were minimal to nonexistent, and it wasn’t like he could just transform and fly away if someone tried to chase him down. Knock Out was quiet for a moment as he tried to think of a good way to say that - a good way being one that wouldn’t lead to Breakdown locking him in the Stunticon hab and never letting him leave. 

The lull in conversation made the creak of the door and the echoing stamp of heavy pedes coming down the hall seem unnervingly loud. Knock Out froze, feeling his claws dig into Dead End’s transformation seams, as those steps paused outside the berthroom. He cringed as a heavy servo hit the wall, but instead of ripping into the room, the fist gave an hesitant - polite? - knock. 

“Dead End? Can we talk?” Motormaster mumbled, his deep voice echoing oddly through the metal walls of the hab suite. 

Knock Out craned his neck around Dead End’s shoulder wheels to see the racer sharing a speaking glance with Breakdown. 

“You can come in, Motormaster, but Knock Out and I are staying right here,” Breakdown called. 

“Oh, is Knock Out still here? Ok, that’s - that’s good too,” the convoy said, ducking through the doorway. He didn’t make eye contact with anyone, just kept talking while staring at the floor, his optics occasionally flicking back and forth. “Dead End - I’m sorry. I have - uh - intimacy issues. And uh - I wanted to try hardlining again - properly. With you! But uh - I got anz - anxious? So I didn’t tell you. Properly. Sorry. I - uh - it won’t happen again. I should have asked? Sorry.” 

The way that the big bot was tripping over his words was almost enough to make Knock Out believe that Motormaster was genuinely remorseful - but his tone was flat, and the hesitation felt more like a sparking reading aloud in class than a mech who didn’t know how to express his remorse. This was the explanation that Dead End and Breakdown were looking for, wasn’t it? It left Knock Out feeling more uncomfortable than he had before. 

“And uh - Knock Out?” Frag, Motormaster was talking to him now. Knock Out felt a sudden flash of jealousy towards Dead End, tucked safely in Breakdown’s arms. He wanted to hide his face in warm blue plating too. But instead he was here; clinging on to a speedster like his alt-mode was some kind of backpack, with Motormaster not exactly looking at him, but not really looking away from him, either. 

“I called the doc I told you about?” the convoy continued, still in that strange droning voice, “but they only had an app - appointment - uh, three shifts from now? During the team’s next derby? So like - do you want it?” 

Knock Out spent a moment trying to parse all of the questions in that sentence before landing on the relevant one. Did he want an appointment with an unknown medic, at an unknown location, for a dangerous and fairly experimental surgery? Put like that, it didn’t seem like a great plan. On the other hand - he was jet hanging on to his sanity by a thread of illegal processor hacks, planning to pay any surgeon that would listen to him with creds he’d gotten mostly from cutting up dead bodies, with a little light stealing on the side. So really, nothing about the situation was great. But that was what happened when you were desperate.

Desperation was a strange thing, Knock Out mused, because even when it was a constant state of being, the feeling came and went. Some shifts, he wanted to crawl out of his plating - his wings burned, his thrusters ached, and his processor ran on a loop, counting down the kliks before his base code got the better of the patches he’d written and sent him into a spiral that there would be no coming back from. Other days, Knock Out didn’t think about his frame at all. He could have almost been a monoformer, living slowly, perfectly happy to walk to the places he needed to be. Of course, monoformers were considered almost as useless as jets in polite society - Knock Out’s fantasies couldn’t get quite that unrealistic - but at least their bodies weren’t ticking time bombs. 

Today was about average, so his emotional sub-system was somewhere between an angry sparkling shrieking incoherently and Dead End’s habitual pessimism, and his frame felt vaguely like it was on fire. Still - that was nothing to base a decision of this magnitude on. He might feel alright at the moment, but who knew where he’d be three shifts from now? 

He hadn’t been exaggerating when he’d told Breakdown that he was running out of time. Knock Out was willing to bet that he knew more about flight-frame coding than anyone else on this rolling nightmare city, but that didn’t mean he could work miracles. He’d been convincing himself that he’d be in the air soon, and/or that it hadn’t been long since his last flight, for literally thousands of shifts now. Every time he dismissed a notification, he felt his algorithms twist a little deeper, pushing back against the edits. Eventually, Knock Out knew, he’d try an overwrite and it simply wouldn’t take. 

Knock Out could feel his processor overheating as he tried to make a decision. He didn’t have enough information to assign anything an accurate risk-value, but he didn’t trust Motormaster to answer any questions he asked truthfully, either. In the end, it was the image of that sleek, gorgeous car from the detailing shop that convinced him. If he could have a frame like that three shifts from now, it was worth a shot. 

“Yes, I’ll take the appointment.” 

\--

“Right this way, sir,” the nurse said. Well - Knock Out assumed the teal and cream minibot was a nurse. His introductions had been a little vague. 

The same could be said about this whole situation, really. After agreeing to allow Motormaster to set up an appointment with his mysterious ‘contact’, Knock Out had expected some sort of further discussion - maybe a comm call or a consultation appointment - in advance of the actual surgery. Instead he’d been sent an invitation with nothing but a suite address and a time slot to add to his schedule. 

When he pressed Motormaster for more details, the convoy had more or less shrugged. What more did Knock Out want? he’d asked. The doctor already agreed to help out, so just show up and let him do his thing. Well - Knock Out wasn’t so sure that he wanted to put his life in the hands of some random mech just ‘doing his thing’, but he’d decided to go and meet the bot himself before changing his mind. 

Unfortunately, said bot was nowhere in sight right now, as the nurse (?) urged Knock Out to lie down on his front the med-berth for better access to his wings and t-cog. 

“Oh - sorry. I meant wheel-mounts, not wings,” the minibot finished, chuckling.

“Quite alright, they are still wings at the moment,” Knock Out said graciously, “but speaking of the surgeon, I was hoping to meet him before we get started. There are some elements of the procedure that I’d like to discuss.” 

“I’m afraid that he’s finishing up with another patient,” the mini demurred, “but if you’d like to relay any information to me, I’ll make sure it gets passed on. He asked me to get you prepped and place you in medical stasis instead of making you wait.” The little mech smiled, but the glare of the operating lights on his visor made his expression hard to read. 

“I must say that I was hoping to see the mech who’s doing me such a great favour with my own optics,” Knock Out pressed. 

“Unfortunately we need to keep to a schedule. Why, if I let every patient talk to the surgeon for five kliks, the delays would multiply out of control. No, I’m afraid it’s simply not possible.” The minibot gave another tight little smile. Knock Out was really not a fan of that expression. 

“I do hate to bring this up,” he said vindictively, “but I didn’t actually see any other patients here when you brought me in. Surely a simple two klik discussion wouldn’t leave anyone waiting very long - they aren’t even here yet.” 

“Sir, I hope that you’re not imagining a quick and simple procedure - nothing could be farther from the truth. With such a time consuming and arduous effort ahead of the doctor, I’m sure you can see that even the smallest delay is unacceptable,” the nurse said, vocalizer thick with condescension. 

Knock Out gave a non-committal hum. “At the very least, you could allow me to inspect the new t-cog for myself before installation,” he said. 

“If you insist, sir.” Knock Out was tempted to insist on never being called ‘sir’ again - the pretense of respect was demeaning. Still, he was slightly mollified when the pastel minibot handed over a gleaming, lightly-used transformation cog for his perusal. It was surprisingly good quality too, considering the general sketchiness of the clinic’s decor. Knock Out had stepped in a puddle of congealed innermost energon on the way in, which just, ew. That was not sterile. Still, the medic would certainly have to sanitize his pedes before removing his thrusters. It would be fine. Probably. 

Knock Out ran his servos over the cog, looking from the tell-tale horizontal grooves that would distinguish a grounder’s component from a flier’s. Yes - there. Closely spaced notches and ridges showed that this had likely belonged to a racer before finding its way here. Perfect. Knock Out still would prefer to have a little more information, but the chance to get his servos on a top-notch part like this was almost too good to pass up. 

“This looks acceptable,” he told the minibot, “but I’d really like the chance to discuss my new wheels with the attending surgeon. I’m planning to install them myself, but I’ll need standard mounts for them on my shoulders and pedes. If I could just take even one klik of his time?” 

“We like to run a tight ship around here, sir. I’m going to have to ask you to either get on the medberth or leave now.” The nurse’s tone was titanium, his visor flashing. There was really no reasoning with some people.

“Oh, very well,” Knock Out sighed. He could always get up and leave if he didn’t like the looks of the surgeon or his feel of his work. The little bot could try and put Knock Out into stasis for as long as he wanted - in his own processor, the jet had full control. Just to be safe though - he wrote a quick-and-dirty subroutine that would wake him up after more than ten continuous kliks offline. That would give him sufficient time that he could shut himself off through the most painful bits of the procedure, without leaving him unaware for long enough for the surgeon to do any irreparable damage.

“Excellent,” the mini said, “open your wrist-port, please.”

Knock Out popped the cover, expecting the bot to pull out his own cables and plug in. Instead, he pulled a chip from his subspace and clicked it into the slot before Knock Out could protest. Oh Primus, a manufactured sedative; he hadn’t been expecting that. They were seriously expensive – down here at least – and seriously powerful. Nothing about this dilapidated hab suite converted to back-alley clinic had led him to believe that the surgeon was rich enough to use sed-chips as a matter of course. For Navitas’ sake, this slag pit was close enough to the track where Breakdown fought his derbies that they could practically hear the engine noise. 

But here Knock Out was, with all his defenses based on working with a living bot’s systems, twisting their motivators until they were convinced that they really didn’t want to harm him – an unsparked program would slide through them like a motorcycle through gridlock. Frag. There went his optics, and yes - there went his locomotion routines. Knock Out had never been a religious mech, but as his processor slid into idling mode he prayed to Epistemus that the wake-up subroutine worked. 

\--

Pain. Knock Out’s awareness was pain. Every inch of his frame felt like it was submerged in a smelter - his nerve circuits were white-hot, blinding, like the light streaming into his optics. He rebooted said optics a few times, trying to make sense of the dark filling his field of view, only interrupted by that bright, aching streak of light. It was reflecting off something metallic - which was more or less everything on a giant metal titan, so not very helpful - and horizontal. Something that Knock Out was - he realized as his proprioception came back online - lying down on. Something like a berth? A med berth, which he was face-down on, with bright operating lights streaming into the gaps between his helm ornaments and the mesh surface. 

Ugh, why though? Oh, of course - the back-alley transformation surgery. How could Knock Out have forgotten? 

It might have had something to do with the pain. Primus - had the surgeon not bothered to manually disable even one of his primary nerve circuits? What kind of hack job trusted a sed-chip - even a high quality one that they had to have bought top-side - that much? If Knock Out hadn’t had the forethought to wake himself up, the pain alone might have done it. Primus - this was something else. He wrote a couple of quick patches to help himself think through the sensation of being slowly liquified. Ah - much better. Now the pain was excruciatingly focused in the center of his back and wings. Phantom wings? Impossible to tell if the wings were still attached or not, but that wasn’t important right now - his surgeon was talking. 

“Why bother with taking off his wings?” Oh wait, that was the annoying minibot nurse with the oh-so-precious colour scheme. 

“Wings as appendages are useless, of course,” said a vaguely familiar voice, “but they contain a significant amount of high-quality nerve circuitry. Removing them before he offlines will preserve the fine connections that tend to burn out during trauma - if I can get all of this intact, it’ll be one of the most lucrative parts of his frame.” 

That was a valid point, and the reason that Knock Out had considered selling them himself more than a few times. But when push came to shove, he liked knowing that he had his wings to fall back on - nobody could steal them without seriously working for it. Not to mention how hideously unbalanced flight frames looked without their primary kibble. Knock Out did strive to maintain a certain aesthetic - hang on. Did the surgeon just say ‘before he offlines’? And was he still talking?

“I’m going to remove this t-cog now, take the wings and put them in the sl-ow co-oling u-nit,” the quack instructed, vocalizer glitching in and out. 

“Yes, sir.” 

At least the minibot used that tone with everyone, Knock Out supposed. His amusement didn’t last long - Knock Out felt something twist and rip and he was hit with another wave of crippling agony. Primus - at least the damned flight-frame t-cog was out now. Soon he’d have that lovely new racer’s component in his frame, and everything would be smooth roads and easy driving. 

Surely that ‘offline’ comment had been nothing more than a slip of the glossa? Knock Out knew plenty of doctors that thought of their patients as mere collections of parts - the whole mech was irrelevant to them. This was probably just an extreme version of the attitude. Sure. 

“Where did you want me to put this, sir?”

“Scrap pile - it’ll only be worth anything if we m-elt it down into sen-tio met-allico. I think I’ll take the servos next. Nothing on real medic hands, but they’ll still fetch a decent pile of creds.” 

Hands? No - no, he must have meant pedes - the thruster removal should be next, after the installation of the new t-cog. But Knock Out hadn’t felt any movement at his back since the shock of the cog removal, and those were definitely magnets clicking into place, immobilizing his left servo. 

Maybe now would be a good time to reveal that he wasn’t quite as unconscious as these mechs thought. 

“There’s nothing wrong with my servos, thanks all the same, doctor.” Knock Out’s voice came out sounding a little less suave than he wanted it to, but he felt like he deserved credit for making the effort. 

“Fra-g! Nebuliz-er! He’s sup-posed to be offline!” 

Wow, that vocal glitch was really out of control. It almost reminded Knock Out of - 

“Quickpulse! Why the frag are you cutting me up? I'm your only assistant!” 

“Knock Out, you ab-sol-ute moron, you’re getting exactly what yo-u de-serve. I can’t believe you stole from me and thought you could get away w-ith i-t,” Quickpulse juddered. 

“I didn’t steal anything!” Knock Out exclaimed. It wasn’t true - he had stolen loads of stuff from Quickpulse’s recycling bay. But that had been going on for hundreds of shifts; Knock Out didn’t see why the glitched-out fool would be getting mad about it now. 

“You stole a wh-ole m-ech! An a-class ground frame - it was worth more creds than a dozen of our usu-al lea-kers.” 

“Wha - you’re talking about Breakdown?” Knock Out asked incredulously. “He was still alive!” 

“S-o wha-t? It was unconscious! Offline is offline when it comes t-o disass-embly. You should have just taken it apart like you w-ere tol-d t-o.” 

Luckily, Quickpulse’s processor didn’t have enough uncorrupted RAM to hold a conversation and perform surgery at the same time, so he hadn’t made any progress on cutting off Knock Out’s servo. Unluckily, the little nurse-bot - ugh, Nebulizer was a lame name, too - was creeping up on Knock Out’s other side with a fresh sed-chip. Also unluckily, Knock Out was incandescent with rage; if anyone called Breakdown ‘it’ again, he was going to lose what was left of his sanity. 

“Don’t even think about plugging that into me,” Knock Out hissed at the nurse. 

“Terribly sorry sir, but I’m afraid you have no choice,” the mech smirked. “I’m going to put this sedative in, and Quickpulse is going to finish taking you apart, and you’re simply not going to wake up again. If you had been a good bot and stayed asleep, it would have been a painless death. Oh well,” the bot smiled. 

While the mini was caught up in his little speech, Knock Out had managed to drag his unmagnetized servo down to waist-level, and had painstakingly reached into his subspace. He’d felt around for a few desperate seconds before grabbing the cylindrical object he was looking for. Now, as the nurse was stepping forward, Knock Out hazily aimed the gun and fired. 

Knock Out had been hoping to shoot the sed-chip out of the nurse’s hand - it would have been both effective and cool-looking - but unfortunately his aim was slightly hindered by both the excruciating pain, and the fact that he’d never fired a gun before.  
The energy blast hit the nurse’s hip instead, spinning him around and dropping him - and the sedative - to the floor. Good enough. 

“Turn off the magnets and hand over the new t-cog, Quickpulse, or I’ll shoot you too,” Knock Out threatened. He waved the gun vaguely, hoping it came off as threatening. 

Quickpulse nodded, twitching harder than ever. As soon as the magnets let his frame go, Knock Out hauled himself up off the med-berth, steadying his aim with his other hand and keeping his former boss within his sights. He carefully ignored the sensation of fluids pouring from his back - that wasn’t important right now. 

“T-cog. Now,” he ordered. 

Quickpulse seemed to be shocked into compliance, reaching shakily behind him and picking up the part. He adjusted his grip as if to throw it, but Knock Out shook his head. 

“No. Put it down on the med-berth. Slowly.” He knew he was talking like one the stars from Wildrider’s ridiculous action vids, but it seemed to be working.

Once Quickpulse had let go of the cog, Knock Out snatched it up and ran out of the suite, leaving energon in a thick trail behind him. He stumbled through the corridors, gun in one hand and t-cog in the other, desperately trying to aim for the engine noise of the derby. He knew that he had to be close to the track, but he’d never been to this part of the Undercarriage before - he might have been walking in circles for all he could tell. 

The only thought in his processor was that he needed to get to Breakdown. Breakdown would keep him safe. Knock Out stumbled onward, digging his elbow into the wall for balance, leaving long pink smears in his wake. Where in the pit was that big blue idiot? No, that wasn’t fair. Breakdown did his best, even if he sometimes had to comm Knock Out and ask him what words on the street signs meant. 

Frag! Comms! Knock Out was the real idiot. He tried to shake his processor into shape, but eventually had to stop and sit down before he could successfully find the command to send a location ping. His optics were glitching and his servos were numb by the time he managed to open the chat.

Knock Out poured his desperation into the comm, his HUD flickering around the edges. As he tried to hit send, everything when black.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Knock Out awoke in darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw: robot medical procedures, blood

Knock Out was standing in the middle of a shadowed corridor. Or perhaps it was a room? Maybe a warehouse? All he could see was darkness, stretching out endlessly around him. There was a sense of space - Knock Out felt somehow sure that if he started walking, he wouldn’t be encountering any walls for a very long time - but also of enclosure. This was not the half-mythical ‘outside’ that bots whispered about; it was another place entirely. 

Well, first thing’s first - Knock Out rebooted his visual sensors. When that failed to dispel the darkness, he checked his diagnostics and carefully felt his face with his servos. But no - everything seemed to be whole and in working order. As he brought his hands down, he could see the red light from his optics reflecting off their polished surfaces. Hmm. 

Knock Out spent a moment trying to check his frame for injuries - he wasn’t in pain, but there was something off about his functionality read-outs, and his emotional subsystem was sending sensor-ghosts of urgency, panic, and fear. Why though? He didn’t remember. He didn’t remember anything, really. Something about Quickpulse? Was he late for work? Primus, Knock Out couldn’t afford to be late for work again. He took a few steps forward, then broke into a run.

He felt like something was pulling him forward, faster and faster. He needed to go, he needed to move. Something very bad was going to happen if he didn’t get there in time. He stumbled forward, tripping over lumps in the darkness. His pedes slipped and slid on unknown fluids. He tripped, fell, and kept falling, as though he’d been walking on air and was only now being reclaimed by gravity. 

Knock Out turned somersaults through empty space. Flashing lights teased his visual sensors, brightening without illuminating. He tried to angle his frame, to use his wings to catch the air, but he didn’t have any wings. He tried to engage his thrusters, but they wouldn’t light. He tried to spread his arms to slow his fall, desperate to do something to keep himself safe. The pounding rhythm of fear was constant in the back of his head, telling him that he had to go, had to move, now, before it was too late. 

Then, suddenly, Breakdown was in front of him, holding his hands, falling through the air with him. Knock Out blinked, surprised. He’d known that Primus was an unfeeling god, but to take Breakdown’s life now seemed excessively cruel. 

“No - Knock Out - I’m not dead and neither are you,” Breakdown said. Or - a hallucination that looked like Breakdown said? A demonic torturer wearing the guise of Knock Out’s only friend said? 

“That sounds like something a demonic torturer would say,” Knock Out countered. “And your information is scrap - Breakdown never calls me by my whole designation.” 

‘Breakdown’ let out a tired-sounding ex-vent. “C’mon doc. It’s normal for me to be serious in a serious situation, ok? And right now I seriously need to get your processor in the game and tell me how you keep the rest of your energon inside your frame.” 

“Processor - what are you talking about, Breakdown?” Or not Breakdown. That dumbly earnest tone of voice was pretty convincing, though. Slag. 

“Yeah, KO - this is your processor - I’m plugged into your medical port right now. You’re in stasis and we can’t get you to wake up; I’m here to drag you back to the land of the living. So come on!” 

And just like that, Knock Out and Breakdown were standing on the ground, as though they hadn’t been falling at all - much less falling for a seriously improbable length of time. Unfortunately, they were still very much inside Knock Out’s processor. 

It was bizarre - Knock Out had accessed a bot’s systems through their medical ports many times; there were programs and menus, folders and sub-folders indexing the mech’s coding and major subroutines. There were not fully rendered models of the mechs themselves, who could talk and move about like it was some expensive immersive VR experience. Or well - perhaps a mid-tier VR experience - their surroundings were still a vague, black blur. 

“How are you doing this?” he asked. 

“Sorry yeah, I know I’m doing it wrong,” Breakdown said, “but I needed to talk to you, not click through a bunch of files. I think I might have touched your spark?” 

“Primus, Breakdown! Why is my spark exposed in the first place?” Knock Out cried. 

“We had to check if you were still alive!” Breakdown exclaimed. 

“There are easier ways to do that!” 

Knock Out conveniently ignored the fact that he’d done nearly the same thing when he had thought Breakdown was offline. There was just something viscerally reassuring about the sight of a bright, living spark. Still! He’d had the good grace to close up his patient’s chest plates after taking a look. 

“Well why don’t you come out and teach us then!” Breakdown huffed, his frame growing hazy along the edges and then gradually fading away. 

“Maybe I will!” Knock Out called after him. 

\-- 

Knock Out’s optics flickered; on for a moment, then off, then on again and steadily brightening. He couldn’t decide what was worse - the pain, or the sheer volume of damage reports popping up on his HUD. He took a careful inventory, and found that he was lying on his side in the corridor where he’d - presumably - collapsed, after sending a message to Breakdown. 

Breakdown, who was sitting in front of him, one hand holding Knock Out’s helm up, and the other tangled with Knock Out’s servo, their wrists plugged together. Breakdown felt very warm, and was surrounded by a halo of glowing golden light - so either Knock Out was still hallucinating, or he was suffering from severe energon loss. 

There were more heated presences at his back, probably - the sensory input was a little confusing. The feelings of glowing plating, cold, sticky liquids, broiling flames of pain weren’t sorting themselves out very neatly in his processor at the moment. Still. There was one obvious conclusion to draw - Knock Out was probably bleeding, and that meant that the bleeding needed to be stopped. Medic one-oh-one, really. 

“None of you idiots thought to check a medic’s subspace for bandages?” Knock Out asked. Or, well. Tried to ask. The sound that came out of his vocalizer was a grinding shriek that rose in pitch until it ended up somewhere outside the range of a mech’s audials. Knock Out watched Breakdown’s face slowly crease into a grimace. 

::Knock Out - your comms are still working, remember?:: 

Really! It was all very well and good for Breakdown to remember his comms, but Knock Out had spent his formative period - not to mention thousands of subsequent shifts - without sending a single text message or engaging in a voice chat. It wasn’t so easy for him. Knock Out considered informing Breakdown of that little fact in a detailed, scathing retort, but he didn’t quite have the energy. 

::Breakdown. My subspace. Static bandages. Stop the bleeding:: Knock Out managed, in bursts between the glittering waves of agony. 

Breakdown nodded, momentarily letting go of Knock Out’s helm. He felt the world spin wildly for a moment and had to suppress an upwelling of nausea, then Breakdown awkwardly caught his face with their joined servos, still cabelled together. The big bot rummaged around in Knock Out’s subspace - the injured medic suppressed a wince, but his organization system had already been thoroughly disrupted by his earlier search for the gun, so there was nothing for it - and Breakdown eventually pulled out not just a roll of mesh bandages, but also a welder and a few clamps. Perfect. 

::Alright doc, what should I do with this stuff?:: 

::Need to. See injury:: 

::Uhh doc? It’s on your back. Unless your helm can spin three-sixty, I don’t think that’s happening.:: 

Well, Breakdown had a point, Knock Out supposed. Maybe they could rig up some sort of camera and display? Blast the Stunticons for all having ground-based alt-modes. Where was a communications rig when you needed one? Mostly sitting pretty on the upper levels, filming and broadcasting races, Knock Out admitted. After a moment speculating about how nice it would be to sit around and watch races all day for creds, he was also forced to admit that he was losing track of the situation. If only he could see through Breakdown’s optics, he’d be able to diagnose the problem in a nanoklik. 

Hang on - Knock Out probably could see use Breakdown’s eyes, and his servos as well. It wouldn’t be safe, strictly-speaking, and it would definitely be illegal, but he was already cabled-in to the big bot - with a few firewall permissions and a little creative coding, he might be able to piggyback on Breakdown’s inputs and direct his movements like a pilot. Or a puppeteer. Primus. It was a big ask, but it was also the only idea Knock Out had. He packaged his thought-tree and sent it through the hardline. 

::Of course, doc. Do it:: Breakdown commed, unhesitating. 

::Are. You sure?:: 

::Yeah. I’d trust you with a lot more than this, if it was the only way to save your life.:: 

Well. Knock Out wasn’t in any state to deal with the emotional ramifications of that, so he got to work entering Breakdown’s systems. 

Knock Out was plugged into Breakdown’s medical port - the big bot had made a reciprocal connection, Primus knew why - so they weren’t actually interfacing, but there was something intimate about it nonetheless. Something about the feeling of sliding through another mech’s systems, glimpsing his thoughts as they passed by like speeding cars, being so close to the core components of his personality. It felt like the opposite of being alone. Knock Out could have spent hours wandering through Breakdown’s files, picking out memories and sampling them like energon treats. Unfortunately, he didn’t have hours. 

To business, then. Knock Out quickly patched Breakdown’s visual feed into his own optics, temporarily overwriting the input from his own. The actual movement was trickier; he had to work his way deep into Breakdown’s coding to find and duplicate his movement routines. Luckily, they weren’t too different from Knock Out’s own. Less lucky was the inherent clumsiness of thick, blunt fingers when one was used to using sleek, delicate claws. The clumsiness of severe fuel loss just compounded the problem as Knock Out fished around in his own back - best not to think about that too much - to find the dorsal energon line. 

Eventually, he managed to clamp it shut, stopping the most significant bleeding. Primus, what had Quickpulse been thinking, letting Knock Out’s internal fuel leak out everywhere? Sure, it wasn’t worth top dollar, but decent recycled fuel was still worth a few creds. And really, it was the principle of the thing - waste not, want not - or want a little less, at least. 

Knock Out and Breakdown then managed to direct the other Stunticons to bandage the seeping nubs that were all that was left of Knock Out’s wings. It was strange to see Wildrider and Drag Strip solemn and silent, doing whatever they could to help. At least the atmosphere was more or less par for the course for Dead End. 

Triage completed, Knock Out took a better look at the state of the patient - himself. The good news was that t-cogs were designed to be removed and replaced; an average mech typically wore out two or three over the course of a lifetime. That was pretty much the only good news. Quickpulse’s shaking hands had hacked into Knock Out’s back plating to open him up, and cut through lines and circuits casually to reveal his internals. This wouldn’t be a quick fix - Knock Out was going to have to put the new t-cog in just to patch some of the holes. 

::Alright Breakdown:: Knock Out commed. Or maybe sent over the hardline? It was getting a little hard to tell where his systems ended and Breakdown’s began. Cross that bridge when they came to it, he supposed.

::Let’s get to work:: 

\--

Knock Out felt like he was floating somewhere in the stratosphere, with nothing but the thin line of his connection to Breakdown keeping him from drifting away. 

They had worked together to patch Knock Out up for an undetermined, but definitely long, amount of time, and he was finally stable. The new t-cog was in place, and integrating with his systems nicely; his circuits and tubes had been reconnected so he could feel his legs again; and his wing stubs had stopped bleeding. Now he was slung between Breakdown and Drag Strip, swaying as he was carried back home. 

It might have been the relief of cheating death, or the huge number of pain overrides he had running, but Knock Out was feeling pretty good. With a couple of shift’s time and some scrap metal, he could manufacture himself some wheel mounts and get his new tires on, then he could finally find and scan that beautiful alt-mode. Everything was going to work out for the best! Though for some reason, Breakdown and his team didn’t seem all that pleased. 

“What are we going to do if he’s there when we get home?” Drag Strip asked. His voice seemed like it was coming from very far away, but at least Knock Out’s audials were working. 

“Tell him to get out, I guess,” Breakdown answered. “I don’t know - I want to talk to him, but I don’t want him around Knock Out like this.” 

“Yeah, but what if we tell him to leave and then we can’t find him again?” Wildrider said. That was a fair point, Knock Out thought muzzily - he wouldn’t want to ruin Motormaster’s relationship with the team over something like this. It was probably just a misunderstanding, anyway. 

“Look, he’s still Motormaster - I don’t want to kill him or anything. If he leaves and doesn’t come back, I say good riddance.” Breakdown’s voice sounded firm, and more angry than sad. 

“Let’s not take killing him off the table too quickly,” Dead End threw in. 

“We can’t kill him!” Drag Strip argued. 

“Why not?” Dead End asked. “He tried to kill Knock Out. Pit, he probably tried to kill me too - not that I should have expected anything else.” 

“We’re getting ahead of ourselves, guys. Right now we need to get home and get Knock Out better. We can worry about what happened and what to do about it later,” Breakdown said. 

Knock Out wasn’t sure what all of that was about, exactly. Kill their team leader? Over some botched recycle-job that the bot hadn’t even been present for? It seemed a little excessive. Still, the pulses of protectiveness and worry from Breakdown’s field felt nice. Warm, somehow. Knock Out drifted. 

\--

“Hey, doc - is it ok if I unplug us?” 

“Mmm?” Oh look, Knock Out’s vocalizer was working. Sort of. And he was still plugged into Breakdown? Knock Out tried to move his servo, and yes, that was definitely a tug on his port. He didn’t recall falling into recharge, but Knock Out’s processor must have been somewhere else. He was back now though, lying on Breakdown’s recharge slab in the Stunticon suite. 

“What happened?” he managed to ask. 

“Jeez doc, I was hoping that you could tell me,” Breakdown replied, scooting Knock Out’s frame a little farther back so that he could sit down next to him. 

“That bastard Quickpulse,” Knock Out hissed. He wasn’t feeling much right now, but the anger at his former boss was clear and present. 

“What about him?” Breakdown looked - not so much confused. More doubtful, like he thought Knock Out might be hallucinating again. 

“He called you it!” Knock Out knew his voice was getting louder, and possibly higher-pitched. 

“I’m gonna need a little more context here, KO.” 

“The fragger doing my surgery was Quickpulse. He told me that he was taking me apart to sell my components, and that it was what I deserved, for stealing you from his clinic.” 

“Steal me? But I was still alive!” Breakdown exclaimed.

“That’s what I said too!” Knock Out agreed. “But he said that offline was offline and I should have just done what I was told.” 

“Well, I’m glad that you didn’t. I’m also - I’m really glad that you’re ok, KO. When I got your comm, I was worried that I was gonna be too late. Then when we found you - “ Breakdown’s voice broke. 

“I’m sorry. I didn’t have anyone else to call. But I’m sorry that I put you through that.” Knock Out made a clumsy grab for Breakdown’s shoulder pauldron with his un-cabled hand, missed, and ended up rubbing the plating around his back wheel instead. 

“No! No doc, that isn’t what I meant,” Breakdown cried. Knock Out could feel his electromagnetic field swirling with fear, guilt, and worry - but above all, sincerity. Breakdown didn’t resent Knock Out for hacking into his systems, taking over his eyes and hands, or putting him through an hours-long, gruelling restorative surgery. He wasn’t even annoyed about being put out of his own bed. It was a little incomprehensible, really. 

“I want to be there for you, KO,” Breakdown continued, “I want to help you out - when you’re in danger, for sure, but even if you’re not. I’m not playing around here, y’know? I’ve got your back, no matter what.” 

Knock Out wanted to say something emotionally meaningful and vulnerable in reply, but he was still pretty out of it, so he ended up giving Breakdown’s tire a squeeze and giggling, “I’ve got your back too!” 

Breakdown’s engine gave a startled rev, and he quickly turned to pull Knock Out’s servo away.   
“Primus, okay, maybe you should keep your hands to yourself when you’re running that many pain patches, huh doc? 

Knock Out laughed some more. His emotional subsystem was such a mess, it was embarrassing.

Breakdown rebooted his optics a few times - probably at the ridiculous sight of the giggling, energon-streaked ex-jet in front of him - then sighed. “Oh yeah, you definitely need to get some recharge, KO. I’ll unplug and leave you to it, okay?” 

The big bot smiled at Knock Out, his golden optics soft, as he reached over to disconnect their wrists. The cable pulled free, taking the warmth of their joined systems with it. Knock Out couldn’t suppress a hiss of discomfort - they’d been in each other’s helms for so long, it felt wrong to be surrounded by nothing but his own code again. 

Breakdown had been getting up to leave, but turned when he heard the sound. “You ok, doc? Anything else I can do?” he asked. 

Knock Out bit his lip-plate. He didn’t know much, but he knew that he didn’t want to be alone right now. 

“Would you stay?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i feel that i must apologize even more sincerely than usual for not knowing How Computers Work.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Knock Out woke, the sensation of walking on air was long gone, and so was Breakdown.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw: more medical procedures, injury recovery  
> I am so sorry for posting this 4hrs late, it will Not happen again.

When Knock Out woke, the sensation of walking on air was long gone, and so was Breakdown. He felt like absolute slag. Oh, of course it was to be expected - the combination of severe energon loss and loads of stress had left him with burnt-out circuits, misaligned joints and critically low levels of hydraulic fluid and coolant. But that didn’t mean Knock Out had to like it. He let out a pathetic moan, lifting one servo listlessly before letting it flop back down onto the berth. There was no point in trying to get up - Knock Out could just die here, in peace. 

“You ok doc?” Breakdown asked, poking his helm into the room. Maybe he wasn’t as gone as Knock Out had thought. “Think you can drink some energon for me?” 

“Leave me alone to die,” Knock Out whined. 

“Okay, Dead End,” Breakdown laughed. “But seriously, KO, we don’t have any med-grade so I bought you a cube that Wildrider put a bunch of random stuff in.” 

Knock Out gagged a little. 

“And I brought you this plain cube that I stuck in the cooler for a while,” Breakdown continued, walking into the room. 

Knock Out grabbed for the drink, beautifully glowing pink and streaked with condensation, but Breakdown pulled it easily out of his reach. Rude, but fair - Knock Out’s servos were shaking pretty wildly, and he wasn’t sure that he could sit without assistance. 

Breakdown must have been thinking along similar lines, stepping closer to help Knock Out roll over, using one hand to tilt his chin up and support his helm. But then instead of, say, handing Knock Out the cube and letting him try to drink for himself, the big bot raised the glass to Knock Out’s lips, and gently started pouring the fuel into his mouth. 

Knock Out carefully swallowed, but couldn’t suppress a little gasp between one sip and the next. It was just so much - the heat of Breakdown’s servo on his neck and the back of his helm, the icy energon sliding into his mouth, the sweet pulsing of a familiar EM field, all laid over the crispy ache of his messed-up frame. Knock Out felt his optics well up with tears. 

“Woah, woah, what’s wrong KO?” Breakdown asked, pulling the cube back and setting it on a side table. 

Knock Out sobbed, dragged in a vent, and tried to talk - but just ended up crying more. His processor felt like it had bluescreened - there was nothing in there to modulate the wildly conflicting feelings his emotional subsystem was throwing out. 

“Okay, it’s okay,” Breakdown soothed, gathering the ex-jet into his arms. He was remarkably careful, easily avoiding Knock Out’s wing-stubs and the huge mass of fresh welds that made up his lower back. If the pit-bound bolt-head would stop being so perfect, maybe Knock Out wouldn’t feel like such a wreck right now. 

“Everything’s gonna be fine, KO, I promise. Just focus on venting. I got you,” Breakdown murmured. Knock Out pressed his face into Breakdown’s neck - it wasn’t like his paint job could get any worse at this point - and focused on the sound of his voice instead. 

When they finally disentangled their frames, the energon had warmed up to room temperature. Knock Out drank it anyway. 

\-- 

“I hope that you’re not planning to make me sleep across from that nightmare of a finish for too much longer,” Dead End snarked, handing the ex-jet another day’s rations. 

Knock Out had spent most of the past dozen shifts in the berth, fueling, recharging and letting his self-repair do its work. Obviously, he wasn’t well enough to spend a long time standing up in the washracks. Knock Out had tried to make his peace with that. He’d tried to tell himself that at least the only people seeing him were the Stunticons, who probably wouldn’t care, since they’d seen him looking much worse before. 

Evidently not. Well - Knock Out was a grown bot. If he felt a flash of hurt, he knew better than to let Dead End see it. In a perfect world, he’d be able to snap back with an insult of his own, but Knock Out’s processor was still fuzzy, and he’d missed the conversational beat - now saying anything would be weird. Maybe he could just pretend to be asleep? 

Dead End ex-vented wearily. “Sorry. I just meant, do you want me to help you fix up your paint?” 

Knock Out sniffed a little. Yes, he wanted to fix his finish - but he couldn’t. That was the problem. He couldn’t stay on his pedes for long enough to polish even one servo, much less bend down to reach his lower half. 

“I put a chair in the washracks,” Dead End continued, “and I thought that I could work on your legs while you sit and polish your arms and chassis.” 

“Are you a mind reader now, Dead End?” Knock Out asked incredulously. It felt like the racer had been plucking Knock Out’s thoughts from thin air. 

“I hate to break it to you, but your field is half-way across the room; if you project your emotions any harder, bots will be able to pick them up from the corridor. You’re a mess in more ways than one right now, darling, but at least the paint is an easy fix.” 

Slagging pits! Just when Knock Out thought that his dignity couldn’t take another hit. Losing control of his field like a sparkling - it was just too embarrassing. 

“Alright, that’s quite enough of that,” Dead End said crisply, wincing a little as Knock Out’s wave of shame hit him. “It’s time for you to get out of your processor and into the world - and the best way to do that is with a nice, long session in the wash-racks. Trust me, I’m an expert.” 

“Maybe you’re right,” Knock Out mumbled, abjectly. 

“I know I’m right. So come on, get off your aft - your shiny armoured car isn’t here to carry you around right now, and I’m certainly not going to try.” 

“Breakdown does not carry me around!” Knock Out protested, slowly getting to his pedes. 

“Oh really? Then why did I see him pick you up off the couch and carry you to berth a couple of shifts ago, when you fell into recharge watching that detailing competition show? Also - why did you know exactly who I meant?” 

“First of all, Breakdown is the only armoured car who lives here, so obviously I knew who you meant,” Knock Out snapped, limping along gingerly. It wasn’t a long trip to the washracks, but every step was agony, so. He was taking his time. “And secondly - maybe you should watch that show and pick up some tips, instead of doing all your accents with temporary paint!” 

“When you think about it, isn’t all paint temporary?” Dead End asked philosophically, helping Knock Out sit down and getting the solvent started. 

“What? No. Permanent paint reprograms your colour nanites and temporary paint - oh. I see what you mean.” Knock Out was a little distracted by the heavenly sensation of hot solvent on his plating, washing away shifts worth of grime. Primus, it felt good. A chair in the washracks - sometimes simplicity truly was the spark of genius. 

Dead End let out a static snort and sat on the floor in front of Knock Out. “Give me one of those pedes,” he instructed. 

“Don’t worry about polishing the thrusters, I’m going to detach them as soon as I’m feeling well enough,” Knock Out said. 

“Shall I do it for you now? I noticed your new wheel mounts are finished,” Dead End said, casually. 

“I… suppose that depends? Do you have medical expertise?” Knock Out wasn’t sure how to feel about the gleam of anticipation in Dead End’s eyes. The racer was doing an excellent job buffing Knock Out’s shins to a mirror shine, but there was a difference between working on the outside of a mech’s plating and playing around with the systems underneath. 

“No more than anyone who’s seen a fair number of offline frames, I suppose,” Dead End laughed. 

“Hmm, I think I’ll wait a little longer,” Knock Out evaded, “I want to keep my self-repair focused on integrating the new t-cog for now.” 

“Ah well,” Dead End sighed, “so it goes.” 

\--

“Heyo doctorino!” Wildrider called, dancing through the main door into the hab suite. 

“Shh!” Knock Out hissed. “They’re about to announce who’s getting eliminated!”

“Doc, I feel like you’re spending way too much time watching ‘Rev Up’. Have you been on the couch since we left for the derby?” 

“It’s not like I can go anywhere,” Knock Out sniffed. 

“Is he still on the couch? Slaggit, KO, you’re supposed to be recharging,” Breakdown admonished. 

“But Breakdown,” the medic whined, “I want to see if Hotseat will win the Finest Finish cube this episode.” 

“Yeah guys, it’s not the show Knock Out likes - it's the bots. And I think we all know why Hotseat is his favourite,” Drag Strip smirked. 

Knock Out resented that comment - he was cheering for Hotseat because he was a talented designer. It had nothing to do with the mech’s orange faceplate or his yellow optics. Huffing, Knock Out shut off the vidscreen. He didn’t need colour commentary from the Stunticons when he was trying to pick up detailing tips, anyway. 

“Alright team, one cube of energon and then we recharge - there’s another derby tomorrow,” Breakdown said. He carefully picked up Knock Out’s legs and slid under them, settling the ex-jet’s thrusters in his lap as he sat down. 

“How have they been going without...you know who?” 

“Fine, I guess. We’ve been holding our own, but the four-mech teams are less popular than our old five-mech circuit.” 

“I’m sorry,” Knock Out said. He couldn’t help but feel responsible for the Stunticons’ broken team. 

“Don’t say sorry - it isn’t your fault, KO,” Breakdown sighed, sounding weary. To be fair, he’d told Knock Out the same thing at least once a shift since the incident - but that didn’t mean Knock Out was convinced.

“Yeah doc, if the fragger doesn’t want to come and talk it out with us, that’s on him,” Drag Strip added. 

“Not that there’s much to talk about,” Dead End muttered. 

“There is so! Frag, Dead End, I can’t believe you’re ready to dump Motormaster without even trying to fix this. He’s been our family since we got out of the creche!” 

“First of all - he probably tried to kill me, Drag Strip. We’ve been over this. And secondly, he was our team leader - not our family.” 

“Same difference!” Drag Strip pouted. “And it’s not like you’d care if he offlined you anyway.” 

Dead End opened his mouth, but was cut off by Wildrider. “It doesn’t even matter!” the hyperactive racer interjected. “We can’t find him, so we can’t talk to him or kick him out.” 

“Actually, that’s the weird part,” Breakdown said. “I thought I saw him today, in the stands at the derby.” 

“Frag, are you serious?” Drag Strip asked. “I caught a glimpse of a convoy-class mech with his colours in one of the private boxes, but I thought there was no way it could be him.” 

“No yeah, I totally hallucinated Motormaster today too, don’t worry guys,” Wildrider comforted. 

“I typically try not to look at the stands, but if all three of you saw him, then doesn’t it stand to reason that he was actually there?” Dead End asked.   
“Maybe I should come with you all next time, and look for him?” Knock Out suggested. 

“No.” 

“Nope.” 

“No way.” 

“Not a chance, doc,” Breakdown said, putting the final machine bolt in the coffin. Knock Out sighed a little. 

“If it helps, I’m still pretty sure it was a hallucination, anyway,” Wildrider offered. 

\--

“Are you sure you wanna do this, KO?” Breakdown asked. 

“Unless you can think of a better idea, I’m sure,” Knock Out replied. Then, after a moment’s thought, he added: “You don’t have to do this, though. If you don’t want to, I’ll find another way.” 

“No, no - I’ll do it,” Breakdown said. He didn’t hesitate, but Knock Out could feel little threads of trepidation in his field. He didn’t blame the big bot - it was one thing to plug into someone in a panicked haze, thinking it was the only way to save a life. It was quite another to contemplate handing over control of your frame in the clear light of your own washracks. 

Apprehension or not, Breakdown popped open his wrist panel and handed a cable to Knock Out, taking the medic’s cord in return. 

There was something surprisingly pleasant about the feeling of sliding into Breakdown’s processor. Knock Out had expected discomfort - on both of their parts, really. The only sense-memory associations he should have with being inside Breakdown’s systems were negative ones; pain, fear, desperation. But if his CPU had made those connections, it wasn’t bringing them up now. Instead, Breakdown’s code surrounded him the way that he imagined a hot oil bath might - warm and embracing. 

His thoughts were just so steady - especially compared to Knock Out’s own. Not fast or hectic, but rock solid, grounding. Maybe a little too grounding - Knock Out had been sitting and enjoying them, instead of getting started on the procedure. Primus, he was going soft. Here was his chance to finally get the alt-mode he’d been working for his whole adult life, and what was he doing? Dawdling, thinking about his feelings instead of concrete goals. 

Time to get to work. Knock Out dug up the remote-piloting subroutines from where he’d archived them, and began infiltrating Breakdown - politely, of course. It was a strange feeling, gazing down at his own frame from above; even more so now that he was in his right mind. Knock Out shook off the disorientation, and tried to impartially assess the patient. 

His wing-nubs - soon to be reformatted into wheel-mounts - looked decent; they had healed well enough to support the new kibble, despite Quickpulse’s shoddy removal job. His lower back was still more weld than plating, but he had hopes that the colour nanites would begin to repopulate within the next half-dozen shifts or so. His newly installed heel wheels were nothing short of a work of art, and as always, his aft looked damn fine. Not bad for a mech who’d nearly bled to death in a back alley not so long ago. 

He slowly opened up the struts, revealing bundles of nerve circuitry and capped energon lines - it was such a pain to have to use unintegrated hand tools. Knock Out’s pulse of irritation was quickly smoothed away, though; without Breakdown lending his optics and servos, this procedure wouldn’t be possible at all. Knock Out felt Breakdown’s core personality, nestled at the back of their shared processor, give a pulse of pleasure at the thought, and knew that the big bot caught his smile in return. 

Sub-par equipment or not, it wasn’t a truly difficult surgery. As long as he kept track of the circuits and made the connections in the right places, it wasn’t much different than plugging in a vidscreen. Admittedly, a vidscreen that was bleeding sluggishly and would be sore for the next few shifts, but. Such was medicine. 

The only real hitch in the process was the emotive network - based on the connections he was making, Knock Out would probably always display with his wheels like a flier did with wings, twitching, flicking and shifting them up and down. He could disconnect the circuits, of course, but it would be uncomfortable - he didn’t want to spend the rest of his functioning dismissing error messages from signals that failed to send. 

No, Knock Out thought; it would be better to just let his frame directly map the responses to his new kibble. Sure, it would look strange to other racers, but Knock Out didn’t plan on hiding his previous frametype. He’d done some questionable things - and possibly made a few questionable decisions - to get to this point, but he wasn’t ashamed of that. He wasn’t ashamed of having done what he had to do. 

In fact, Knock Out decided as he closed the incision, he was proud of his new frame. Sure, right now he looked like a failed triple changer - racer from the back, when his wheels were in view, and flier from the front, where his main features were turbines and a cockpit - but that wouldn’t last long. Once he had the final piece of the puzzle, Knock Out would be able to finally, finally take charge of his own life. 

::Doing okay there, doc?:: Breakdown commed. 

Knock Out shivered for a moment at the odd sensation of simultaneously sending and receiving the message before he was able to reply. 

::We’re nearly done. Thank you again for this, Breakdown.:: 

Warmth slid through the combined fields. ::It was nothing, KO. You’re the one doing all the work.::

::I couldn’t have done it without you, as you know very well:: Knock Out replied. ::If it weren’t for your help, I’d have probably spent my life savings getting some back alley hack to install these, if he didn’t just try to cut me up for parts like Quickpulse almost did.:: 

::Yeah - speaking of that afthole, I went to your old clinic the other shift to look for him, and the place was locked up tight. No sign, no note - it didn’t look like he was planning on coming back anytime soon.:: 

::Breakdown! What were you thinking, going back there? What if he grabbed you and tried to slice you up too?:: 

::Relax, doc. You really think I couldn’t take him? I’m kinda offended.:: 

::Well no - I don’t know! He had some random minibot working for him when I saw him last, maybe he has goons too. Pits, maybe he’s got a whole organization. I just think it’s better not to take any chances.:: 

::Like I told you before, I take out goons for a living. Besides, I know crime bosses - and that guy? Definitely isn’t one.:: 

::I don’t know, Breakdown. Maybe he isn’t - but I’m starting to think that we’re mixed up in something that we don’t understand.::


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Knock Out isn't going to let a little thing like legality stand between him and the alt-mode of his dreams.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not sure if there are any new warnings in this chap, but if you see one, let me know!

Knock Out flung open the door of the habsuite and called out, “Stunticons, I’m home!”

The Stunticons - minus Motormaster, who was still missing in action, give or take a possible hallucination - did not deign to reply. 

Or perhaps, Knock Out realized, as he took another look at their expressions, they were just shocked by his uncharacteristically good mood. Breakdown’s orange faceplate was blank, Drag Strip had clearly just rebooted his optics, and Dead End looked like he was having an existential crisis. Thank Primus Wildrider was napping; Knock Out couldn’t even imagine his potential reaction. 

“Well? What are you staring at?” he asked, casually putting a hand on his hip. Okay, he was posing. But damn, did that gold temp-paint ever look great with his new gold rims. Maybe the pose would be more effective from behind, actually. Knock Out considered giving a pirouette, but reluctantly decided that that might be just a bit too far. 

After a moment, it became clear that neither Breakdown nor Drag Strip were planning to reply. Breakdown’s mouth was hanging open, and the yellow speedster was busy staring at his interim team-lead with anticipatory glee. 

It fell to Dead End to take up the challenge, clucking: “Oh Knock Out, the colour is lovely, but I do wish you’d let me assist with the linework.” 

“Don’t you worry,” Knock Out replied, walking over to lean against the arm of Dead End’s preferred chair. “I’ll let you help me out with something even more important.” 

“And what might that be?” the racer asked. 

“You can take me back to that mod shop, so that I can finally scan the perfect alt-mode!” 

Dead End made an odd face - too low-effort to be called a wince, but certainly a change from his usual flat look. Behind them, Drag Strip let out an awkward hiss of static, but neither mech spoke up. 

“What?” Knock Out asked, after an uncomfortable pause. 

“KO,” Breakdown cut in, “you know that they don’t actually sell alt mode scans at the mod store, right?” 

“Um no, Breakdown, I actually thought that having a display of an item meant that said item would be available for purchase. Or scans of said item. Whatever.” 

“Yeah, well - no,” Breakdown replied.

“What I think Breakdown is trying to say is that - the holodisplay you saw? Was probably borrowed from the dumpster of a high end shop, topside. The proprietor would have put it up to attract foot traffic and give the place a little class - no one would actually try to buy it,” Dead End said. 

“I guess, as a jet, you wouldn’t have any reason to know this, but around here, most people just scan their friends or randoms at the bar when they want a new alt,” Breakdown added. 

“I thought you would want to scan me,” Drag Strip pouted. 

“Copy an alt-mode from someone I know? Absolutely not. It’s just - not happening. Maybe we could go topside to get the scan? I have some creds left,” Knock Out suggested, perhaps a little desperately. He liked the Stunticons well enough, but he had no desire to _match_ with any of them. 

“Uhh KO, I know you saved up a couple creds, but I don’t think you could afford to contract a model with the kind of alt you want,” Breakdown said, grimacing. 

“Which alt are we talking about here?” Drag Strip asked, optics gleaming - probably with prurient interest. Knock Out wasn’t sure exactly what Breakdown meant by ‘contract a model’, but he didn’t like how it sounded. 

“The holo we saw was the Paragon 3061 - the edition they released just before the last Quarterly Benefit race, I think,” Dead End said. 

“Oh frag, really?” Drag Strip asked, genuine surprise in his tone. 

“Yes,” Knock Out confirmed, “it was. Why?” 

“Because I’m pretty sure I saw someone with an alt that looked like a Paragon - maybe the latest version? It was up in the private box at the last derby - I was checking for Motormaster. I figured they were Pitboss’ side piece or something,” Drag Strip elaborated. 

“Pitboss?” Knock Out hadn’t heard the designation before, but couldn’t place it. 

“Yeah, the femme who runs the derbies? Black paint, gun alt?” 

“That tiny bot who practically lives in the top box?” 

“Yeah - I mean, she looks small, but you do not want to mess with her. Seriously, that femme knows people,” Drag Strip stressed. 

“Okay fine,” Knock Out conceded, “But do you think we could mess with her Paragon-alt ho? I mean - it only takes a klik to scan an alt-mode. They might not even notice?” 

“Hang on,” Breakdown cut in, waving his servos. “One - never try to say the word ‘ho’ again, doc - you can’t pull it off. And two, I don’t think I like where this plan is going.” 

“It’s alright Knock Out; you can call me your ho anytime,” Dead End consoled. 

“What’s not to like, Breakdown? We haven’t even made a plan yet,” Knock Out said, deciding to forego both offense and the possibility of responding to Dead End’s comment. 

“Yeah, but I can tell where this is going. Drag Strip will be like ‘oh, Pitboss is having a big party to celebrate the cycle’s derby winners’ and you’ll be like ‘we should sneak in’ and then Wildrider will get involved somehow, and before I know it, I’ll be getting my hammers out and knocking heads.” 

Breakdown’s scenario sparked a flurry of commentary from the room - Knock Out had to replay his audio files a few times to process what exactly everyone said. It didn’t help that Wildrider had walked sometime during the past few kliks, and was single-handedly responsible for fifty percent of the noise, and most of the shoving. Typical. 

Knock Out was fairly sure that it was Drag Strip who didn’t appreciate Breakdown’s impression of his voice (it had been uncharitably high-pitched), and Dead End who provided the useful information that the aforementioned party was happening a few shifts from now, and the Stunticons were invited, with more than enough plus-ones between them to get Knock Out in. Wildrider was encouraging Breakdown to get out his hammers and smash - apparently anyone in range? - while Knock Out himself was advocating for caution and reason in the face of uncertainty. And possibly trying to make sure no one scratched his lovely new paint. 

When the dust settled, Knock Out was perched on one of Breakdown’s knees; Drag Strip had managed a strategic push in the chaos. He considered getting up, but it wasn’t like there was anywhere else to sit. Knock Out would just have to be the bigger person and settle in his friend’s warm, spacious lap. Like an adult. 

Wiggling a little bit to get comfortable, Knock Out returned to the matter at hand. 

“So, we know that we’re invited to a party in a few short shifts. We know that there’s a decent chance to meet the mech with the alt-mode of my dreams at said party. What do we have to lose by going? Even if we can’t convince them to let me do a quick scan, there might be free high grade.” 

“Oh I don’t know, what could go wrong at an illegal party held by a crime boss?” Breakdown asked sarcastically. 

“Is the party itself illegal, though?” Dead End questioned. 

“I mean, yeah, probably,” Drag Strip said, gesturing vaguely. 

“Fair point,” Dead End agreed. 

“See?” Breakdown said, leaning into Knock Out’s space to look the medic in the eye. Knock Out refused to move back - it wouldn’t do to show weakness - and lifted an optical ridge. 

“See what, Breakdown? I’m a career criminal, and in case you’ve forgotten, so are you! I’m certainly not going to let a little thing like legality stand between me and the frame of my dreams.” 

“What about a little thing like safety? Yours, and my team’s?” Breakdown’s tone was steel as he leaned even closer, until their helm ornaments practically touched. 

“If you’re scared, you don’t have to come with us,” Knock Out challenged, not moving an inch. Breakdown could get as close as he wanted, and use that deep, shivering voice as much as he wanted - Knock Out wasn’t going to back down on this. He’d risked too much to settle for anything less than a new frame that looked perfect - a frame that finally felt right. 

“Indeed, I’d be more than happy to take Knock Out to the party for you, dear leader,” Dead End crooned. He and Drag Strip were looking - well staring, really - at the medic and the armoured car in their too-close pose, without any sense of decency. It was a sad day when only Wildrider felt awkward enough to look away from a bot who had no respect for another’s personal space. 

Breakdown tensed for a moment, then let out a deep ex-vent and sagged backward, tipping his helm up to stare at the ceiling. 

“Fine, fine. We’ll do it your way. I’ll take you to the party, and I’ll get you out when they find us and Pitboss’ goons try to shoot us,” the big bot groaned. 

“Oh ye of little faith,” Knock Out said, cuddling forward to tuck his helm under Breakdown’s chin. “It’ll be completely fine - in and out, no one will even know we’re there. Now! Who wants to watch the season finale of Rev Up with me?” 

\-- 

“Come on, doc! You look fine,” Breakdown groaned. 

“Really Breakdown - you should know by now that I won’t settle for looking ‘fine’. I need to look perfect,” Knock Out hissed, as venomously as he could manage without actually moving his face. 

“You look lovely, but I really don’t think any amount of eyeliner is gonna keep people from staring at your kibble. And we’re gonna be late.” 

“Of course we’re going to be late - and so is everyone else. That’s how it’s done, Breakdown. They’re called social graces - maybe you should get some?” Knock Out asked sarcastically. He knew very well that Breakdown didn’t care about being fashionable, but he wanted to get some of his own back after that kibble comment. Taking aim at Knock Out’s work-in-progress frame was both rude and uncalled-for. 

“You’re killing me here, KO. The rest of the team is already there, and I don’t want Drag Strip and Wildrider spending too much time screwing around without backup.” 

Knock Out clicked his vocalizer chidingly. “Dead End is there to watch them. And besides, you’re the one who’s distracting me and making this take longer than it needs to.” 

“Dead End never stops Wildrider from getting into fights,” Breakdown sighed. “He says it’s because he doesn’t like standing in the path of the inevitable, but I think he just thinks it’s funny.” 

“I mean, he’s not wrong,” Knock Out offered, finishing up the glitter detailing on his cheek-struts. 

“That’s not the point! This is a party with organized criminals - I don’t want my team members bringing their fists to a blaster-fight.” 

“Don’t you still have my gun? You grabbed that day when I passed out, didn’t you?” 

“Yeah, I have it - Drag Strip and Wildrider don’t. Where in the pit did you get that thing, anyway?” 

“Found it,” Knock Out smiled. 

“Hey doc - you know when you grab stuff out of mechs’ subspaces? That’s not called finding,” Breakdown laughed. 

“He was dead anyway - it’s not like he was using it,” Knock Out protested. 

“Gross, KO,” Breakdown said, scrunching his faceplate. He paused for a moment, then added: “But also like, isn’t that weird? You’d think the leakers you used to get in that clinic would sell something valuable like that before they offlined.” 

“Yeah, it is kind of weird, I don’t know,” Knock Out agreed. “But come on, aren’t you the one who was worried that we were going to be late? Let’s go already.” 

“Primus doc, I just can’t win,” Breakdown groaned, letting Knock Out grab his hand and pull him out of the habsuite. 

\--

“Names?” the bot at the door asked, vocalizer thick with boredom. 

“Yeah, I’m Breakdown? From the Stunticons? And this is my date?” 

Knock Out winced at the awkward introduction. It was a good thing they had an invite to this party, because Breakdown definitely wouldn’t have been able to talk his way in without one. Which wasn’t to say that Knock Out could have - he’d only seen parties like this one in vids, and didn’t have any experience either way - but at least he’d have sounded confident. 

The door-bot took their sweet time scrolling the datapad they held - even though it was definitely searchable, and they could have just entered ‘Stunticons’ and found Breakdown’s name in less than a klik. The event was off to a great start. 

Eventually they received the nod, and were let through the door. Knock Out had expected something more or less like the bar Breakdown had taken him to before - darkness, music, loads of drunken bots, and so on. This was - not that. He wasn’t sure what it was, but it definitely wasn’t that. 

The room was just so - so shiny. Everything, from the floors to the tables and the bots sitting at them, was polished chrome, opalescent white or dazzling jewel tones. Honest-to-Primus waiters - who Knock Out had assumed only existed in period dramas - were circulating with platters of energon, high grade and treats. There were soft synth-tones playing, barely audible over the hum of polite chit-chat. Their host, the gun-former herself, was seated on a dais at the back of the room, looking even more smug than usual. 

Knock Out scanned the room desperately for some sign of Dead End, Drag Strip and Wildrider. Surely they must be sticking out like sore antennae in this crowd? He needed some semblance of normalcy to latch on to. 

He was still turning his helm back and forth like a scanner when Breakdown casually linked their arms and pulled him into a conversation with one of the groups of fancy-looking mecha. Knock Out focused on the people in front of him, determined to introduce himself confidently and charmingly - he’d be damned to the pit before he’d let Breakdown do all the talking. 

Instead, he ended up emitting an embarrassing crackle of static and rebooting his optics. Drag Strip? Fragging Wildrider? And yeah, Dead End - Knock Out had expected that he would be able to blend in with the high-class vibe of the room. But Primus, he couldn’t believe that he’d missed Drag Strip’s optic-searing yellow paintjob, much less that Wildrider had toned down his zany antics enough to casually stand around sipping energon. The only bot he didn’t recognize in the group was the one who actually did stand out - and not in a good way. 

The mech was huge. Just, unreasonably big - he was of a height with Breakdown, but significantly thicker - and there was something familiar about his dull green paint job. Knock Out tilted his helm, trying to place the bruiser, as the mech lifted an absurdly thick hand and waved. 

“Um hi? I’m Bulkhead.” 

Bulkhead... Bulkhead...where had Knock Out heard that name before? Nothing was coming up in his short-term storage, so he wrote a quick search function, and - frag. 

Bulkhead? The green ATV who’d almost killed Drag Strip at the first derby Knock Out had been to? The one who damaged Breakdown enough that everyone thought he was offline? That Bulkhead?

Knock Out’s processor was a flurry of question marks, but all he managed aloud was: “What.” 

“Yeah - I’m uh, my designation is Bulkhead,” the brute gave an awkward laugh. “Or yeah I uh - already said that. Yeah. And I work with BD and the Stunticons? At the derbies, y’know?” 

“Work with them?” Knock Out hissed, stalking forward and jabbing one delicate claw at the green mech’s barrel chest. The bumbling introduction had just barely penetrated the haze of pure rage that had overcome Knock Out’s CPU. “You nearly killed them,” he continued, “I was washing Drag Strip’s energon out of my servos for shifts after you were through with him. Not to mention Breakdown-!” 

Knock Out’s rant, which had just been getting started, was cut off by the blue menace himself reaching out a hand and slapping it over the medic’s mouth. 

“Sorry, Bulk,” Breakdown laughed. He clearly hadn’t grasped the seriousness of the situation. 

“Yeah doc, don’t worry about it,” Drag Strip said, placing a consoling hand on Knock Out’s elbow. “The derbies are just business - we’re all out there doing our best to scrap each other, it’s nothing personal. We’ve done our fair share of damage to Bulk too, and he doesn’t mind.” 

“Heh,” the green bastard smirked. “Remember that one time when you and BD cornered me under that ramp, and then Wildrider came out of nowhere and landed on my back? I think I popped all four of my tires. Frag, that was a good match.” 

Wildrider laughed and said something back - he was still blending in, voice a reasonable volume and tone borderline polite, and wasn’t that just the weird cherry on top of the energon tart?

Knock Out didn’t get a chance to try to figure it out, though, because Breakdown turned and tucked the ex-jet firmly under his arm, tilting their helms together. To anyone watching, it would look like they were lovers who couldn’t keep their hands off each other, but Knock Out knew very well that he was being restrained in case he decided to go after Bulkhead again. 

“Relax, KO. Bulk would never hurt me or the team on purpose - like Drag Strip said, it’s just business,” the blue bot murmured, quietly enough not to be heard by the rest of the group. 

“Business? If I hadn’t been there, you and Drag Strip would be offline right now. Do you get that? That bot right there could have been the reason that your team lost half its members. I don’t think I can shrug that off,” Knock Out said, equally softly. 

“I dunno doc - that’s the risk we take, doing what we do. Bulk is a friend outside of the pit, and so are a bunch of our other opponents. They’re not bad bots, they’re just doing what they gotta, same as us. For what it’s worth, though, I’m glad you were there to patch us back up, and I’m glad that you want to protect us.” 

“That’s what friends do, right?” Knock Out smiled shakily at Breakdown. 

The big bot nodded back, warmly. 

“But still,” the medic shook his helm and sighed. “I don’t think I can stand here and chat with someone when all I can see is your energon on his hands. Maybe just - give me a moment? I’m going to get a drink or something,” Knock Out slid out of Breakdown’s hold, and walked away. 

“KO -” Breakdown started to call after him. 

Dead End cut him off, saying: “Give the doctor a moment to cool down. He’ll be back.” 

Breakdown’s reply was drowned out by the noise of the crowd.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Why, you ask, is Breakdown the team leader when Motormaster isn't around?   
> Clearly, because he is the next Biggest bot (he's also the most stable in this AU, but that's not the reason).


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Primus, kid, you have no idea what this place is, do you?” 
> 
> “Look, I don’t care what it is! All I want is to ask you if I can scan your alt-mode!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw: violence

Where was a fragging waiter when you needed one? When Knock Out had walked into the party, it had seemed like the bots in silver temp-paint holding silver trays were everywhere - but now that he was actually looking, they were nowhere to be found. 

He nudged and slid his way through the crowds of bots, aiming for the back of the room - there were a couple of doors back there, one of which presumably led to the energon dispensary. Looking for that seemed like a better bet than wandering aimlessly, waiting for someone to offer him a drink. Imagine having a whole plateful of fuel - and then casually handing it off to other people, instead of stuffing it into your subspace! The whole thing was a little too decadent for Knock Out to wrap his processor around. 

Well - waiters or no waiters, Knock Out was getting his free cube. He wasn’t hungry, exactly, but there was room in his tanks, and he wasn’t about to miss the opportunity to top-off on someone else’s dime. He was happy to have even one shift where the Stunticons didn’t have to fuel him, but he was hoping for many more to come - and they wouldn’t be just lucky scores, either. Soon, having creds to spare would be the rule, not the exception. 

Primus, how big was this room? Knock Out was still making his way through the sea of bots, and had yet to find a door or even a wall of any kind. This type of big space, unbroken by support columns or makeshift enclosures, was almost unheard-of in the Undercarriage; the only room he’d seen that could come close was the track where Pitboss’ derbies were held. Drag Strip really hadn’t been kidding about her knowing people. 

Knock Out’s optics - still scanning for that silver temp-paint - caught on a sleek curve of plating. Why did that gorgeous shoulder plating look so familiar? The way that it arced over the chest, emphasising a sharply slanting headlight, pinged something in Knock Out’s image banks. Could it be? Was this really the mech with the alt mode of his dreams? 

Their colour scheme was nothing to write home about; soft blue and gunmetal grey, with black accents, without a warm colour or shiny detail in sight. It was really just as well - Knock Out didn’t know what he would have done if the bot had been red. They were on the smaller side, too. He’d have to shift some mass to make it work, but a touch of extra density wasn’t a bad thing in a racing frame. Now that he was going to be subjecting his body to things other than sleeping and doing disassemblies ( _racing, racing, live patients, racing_ sang his emotional subsystem) he would want a little extra armour. 

While his higher functions were distracted, Knock Out’s locomotion routines had locked on to the bot in question, and followed them into a side hallway branching off the huge main room. It was a marked contrast, dark and filled with ninety-degree turns - all the rooms must be tucked back here, out of sight. This was his chance; he could get the bot alone, run a quick scan, and then dissolve back into the party without anyone being the wiser. 

Primus, the bot was moving fast, though. Knock Out picked up his pace, walking awkwardly to keep his freshly-wheeled pedes from thudding too loudly against the metal floor. It was strange, feeling how heavy his new feet were, so much wider than his old thrusters, feeling the press of rubber with each step. Oh, but he was ready to feel solid - a full tank and a low centre of gravity, no more of these spindly, cold-and-hungry struts. Keep on target, mech, he told himself, dismissing the fantasies his future-projection systems kept offering. 

There - a straight shot, and his mark right in front of him. Knock Out called out: “Hey!” 

“What?” The bot whipped around, shocked. How had they missed his presence? Maybe Knock Out wasn’t the only one caught up in their own processor. 

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you. I just wanted to ask - “ he was cut of by a sharp slicing motion from the stranger; the classic street-gesture for silence. Knock Out was surprised to see it coming from someone who seemed so at home in a fancy party like the one outside. The bot beckoned Knock Out forward, until they could lean their helms together and talk subvocally. 

“What in Mortilus’ name are you doing back here, kid?” they asked. 

“Looking for you,” Knock Out replied. 

“What? Did Pitboss send you?” They seemed oddly frightened, holding their EM field in tightly, but not tightly enough to disguise the low buzz of distress. 

“No, he said, trying to ease their worry. “I just wanted to ask you a question.” 

“Who are you? Do you even work here?” 

Knock Out’s reply was cut off by the heavy sound of footsteps coming down the hall. 

“Frag,” the bot hissed, grabbing Knock Out’s servo and pulling him along until they could duck into a small, dark room. 

“What?” Knock Out asked. “What’s going on? Why are you so afraid of being found?” 

“Primus, kid, you have no idea what this place is, do you?” 

“Look, I don’t care what it is! All I want is to ask you if I can scan your alt-mode!” 

The bot did a double take, looking over Knock Out’s frame in disbelief. “Aren’t you a flyer?” they whispered. 

“Not anymore,” Knock Out announced - possibly a little too loudly. The bot frantically gestured him into silence once more. 

They both listened, holding their vents, as the steps came to pause outside the door of their hiding place. Knock Out felt his claws cut into the forearm-plating of his companion as his grip tightened in fear. Baseless fear - probably - but this bot’s mood was affecting him more deeply than he’d like to admit. 

They heard another set of pedesteps, lighter and quicker this time, make their way toward the owner of the first set. They, too, paused in front of the door. After a moment, muffled voices began echoing through the gaps in the cheap sheet-metal walls. 

“Do you have it?” a high-pitched and somehow vicious voice asked. 

“No, I don’t fragging have it - which you know very well. I’ve seen your little sneaks following me.” This voice was deeper, with something oddly familiar about it. Why did Knock Out’s Primus-damned auditory processing software have to be such bad quality? 

The first speaker sighed, theatrically. “You know that they’ll stop once you’ve paid what you owe. I’ve trusted you, I really have,” they continued, “but it’s been shift after shift of excuses and delays. I won’t be waiting any longer. You can pay your debt yourself.” 

“No! No wait - please!” The second, deeper voice sounded desperate, static crackling through the words.

“I’m afraid I’m done waiting.” 

“No - no, no, no! Please, seriously, this is the shift where I pay it all. I swear - my whole team is here, those idiots will drink anything. All I have to do is slip something into their high-grade - you can watch me the whole time - I won’t even leave this suite. Please, just give me one more chance.” The second speaker was abject, tripping over his words. Begging. 

“The whole team? You can guarantee that?” There was a gleam of something hungry in the higher voice. 

“Yes, yes, I swear - I’ll even throw in the little medic too, I think I saw him come in. I’ll get you five top-quality bodies before this shift is over.” 

Wait - hang on a klik, Knock Out thought. Hang on for just one klik. 

“You’d better. I won’t be so forgiving this time, Motormaster.” 

Oh. 

Oh, frag. Oh no. Knock Out felt his processor white out, and tried to force himself through the shock to hear Motormaster’s reply. 

“I will, I swear I will - just let me grab one of those silver guys, I’ve got something I can slip them right here with me,” the former Stunticon said, voice still shaking in terror. 

“It had better be something that won’t damage their tanks,” the first bot said sharply. 

“No, no, no damage to the tanks or the lines. It won’t even stop their sparks - I know the parts are better when they’re fresh. This is the real deal - I’ll get you everything you want this time.” He was practically sobbing. 

“I’ve heard that before. I allowed you one fluke - nobody could have expected a damn recycling-bot to steal that armoured car. But a half-dead racer that didn’t even die, a fragging back alley brawl that you didn’t have the guts to finish - and then you couldn’t even off a bot who constantly talks about death?! And when you finally, finally get me someone, it’s a slagging cut-rate newspark jet? Who then GETS AWAY?” The sharp voice rose to a screech. 

“Look, ‘Boss, I swear to you, it won’t happen this time. Their bodies will be on Quickpulse’s slab before the end of shift - and this time, none of them will get away.” 

“Hah!” The gleeful cruelty in that short laugh was nearly enough to make Knock Out’s plating rattle. He struggled to get himself under control - to stay quiet - as the voice continued: “Quickpulse won’t be using those slabs for a good long while. That damn assistant of his can take care of it, though. And he’ll have to, right? Because neither of you want to end up like Quickpulse, do you?” 

“No, no please, anything else, just don’t do that to me, please,” Motormaster moaned. If Knock Out wasn’t so worried for his own safety, he might have been glad to hear so much pain in the voice of someone who’d apparently nearly killed Breakdown. Nearly killed his entire team? And for what? 

“You’re embarrassing yourself, Motormaster. I already told you that I’d give you one last chance,” said the first voice, who, Knock Out realised, couldn’t be anyone but the derby-master herself - Pitboss. 

“And then?” Motormaster still sounded hesitant, but there was some slyly wheedling in his tone. “Once the debt’s all paid off? You’ll get me my solo show?” 

“If you get me the whole team by the end of this shift, you’ll get your debut. I can’t guarantee anything more than, mind you - if they don’t want you for the big leagues, they don’t want you, so don’t think you come crying back to me.” 

“Oh, they’ll want me.” Motormaster laughed. 

Knock Out felt like he had tripped into some kind of fever dream. Hearing Motormaster’s smug chuckle, as if he was back in the Stunticon hab bragging about fights he’d won - moments after he’d been sobbing and begging and promising to kill his teammates? 

Knock Out turned to look at his companion, trying to ask with his optics if this was really happening. The bot just shrugged, gesturing for silence once more. They listened as Pitboss commed someone from the dispensary to send a waiter over, then her light little steps clicked away. Motormaster stood for a moment - Knock Out could hear the wheezes and creaks of his poorly maintained systems - before slamming a punch into the wall and walking away. 

Holy Primus. Knock Out had to warn the Stunticons. 

He reached up to his comm - he wasn’t going to forget this time - but before he could initialise the call, the bot next to him grabbed his servo and pulled it away. 

“What in the pit are you doing?” the medic hissed. 

“You were about to send a comm, right?” the bot asked. 

“Of course I was! Didn’t you hear Motormaster say he was going to put something in my team’s drinks?” 

“Yeah, I did. I also happen to know that Pitboss has this place beyond bugged - nobody sends a message in here that she doesn’t know about. So if you want to let her know that we were back here listening to her plans, you can wait until I’m out of the line of fire, first.” 

“No - no, you’re right. If she overhears then they’ll just come up with another plan,” Knock Out agreed. 

“Yeah, like just going ahead and shooting all of you - I’m surprised she’s even bothering with poison. This place is a fortress; you’re not getting out of here with anything short of a tank if she decides she wants to keep you in.” 

“I need to warn them in person, then,” Knock Out said, trying to twist his wrist out of the other bot’s grip. 

“Woah, hold on a sec. You need to wait until Pitboss and that other guys are back in the crowds - if you get caught in these halls with no one around, you’re not gonna like what happens next.” 

“I can’t wait! It takes less than half a klik to dose a drink - I need to get out there before they do.” 

“So what, you’re gonna run by two heavily armed bots yelling ‘don’t drink anything’? How do you think that’s gonna end, huh? Take a klik and think about it.” 

“There’s nothing to think about!” Knock Out was growing more and more frantic. He needed to warn Breakdown and the others now - if they were drugged and unconscious, Knock Out didn’t stand a chance of getting them out. There was no plan to make; either he warned them in time and they lived, or he didn’t and they died. 

The bot stared at him for a moment, then vented a sigh. “Fine, I can’t think of a better plan either. You’re gonna have to scan my alt and drive out there as fast as you can.” 

“What?” Knock Out rebooted his optics. 

“Were you gonna try to make it on foot? At least if you’re driving, you’re harder to hit with an energy-blast - maybe you’ll have half a chance,” the bot said. They sounded long-suffering, but Knock Out could see the glint of concern in their optics. 

“Are you serious? You’ll let me scan your alt?” Knock Out was stuttering, voice half-static. His reality matrix felt like it was about to crash. 

“Yeah, come on - do it quickly. I need to get out of here before someone connects your new appearance with mine.” 

“But - don’t you live here? What are you going to do?” 

“I’ll figure something out, kid. Don’t worry - but get a move on, or this’ll all be for nothing.” 

Knock Out cued up the scanning sequence; he’d bookmarked the file path earlier that shift, when it seemed like this party was the answer to his problems. Primus, past-Knock Out hadn’t known the definition of problems. Before he’d needed an alt-mode, but at least he had his friends. Maybe now this alt-mode could save them - if the damn scan ever finished. 

It felt like forever, but was probably less than a klik, before the scan was complete and integrated with his programming. 

“Okay, take it easy on the corners and don’t try to accelerate too quickly at first - you don’t want to spin out,” the bot instructed. 

“It’ll be fine,” Knock Out called, triggering the transformation sequence. 

It was - exhilarating. His engine revved and his plating twisted and split along seams that hadn’t moved in longer than he could remember; the rush was incredible as his brand new wheels hit the ground. If it felt this good now, he could only imagine how it would feel when his processor wasn’t filled with fear and panic. Speaking of which - he needed to get moving. 

He gunned the ignition and slammed through the door, tires squealing as he fishtailed through the winding hallway. He didn’t see any trace of Motormaster, Pitboss or the waitstaff, so he kept driving, out of the back corridors and into the thick of the party. 

There was no time to transform and try to casually edge through the assembled bots - he would have to go through. Luckily, he could see Breakdown and Bulkhead, standing head-and-shoulders above most of the slim, slight bots in the room. Unluckily, they were near the suite’s entrance, most of the length of the huge room away from Knock Out - and those little silver-painted waiters could be anywhere. 

This driving thing was harder than he’d expected. Knock Out tried to stick close to the walls, where the crowd was a little less packed, but his steering was all over the place, and he had only the barest control over his wheels. It was odd - he remembered flying being so easy that it was almost instinctual. But well - his four-wheeler coding was non-existent. Knock Out was pretty much making it up as he went along. 

At least bots seemed to be getting out of his way as he raced through their legs; more than a few were yelling or screaming, too. Still, he’d managed to avoid running over any really essential parts or hitting anyone cassette-size or smaller, so he was doing alright so far. Knock Out pushed it a little faster, the roar of his engine cutting through the noise of the party. 

Finally, he was close enough to the Stunticons to try to stop - he felt the sharp sting of his brake-pads on hot rims, and threw himself into a transformation sequence. Turning, twisting, and he was in root mode again, but with plating in different places, and about half a hand shorter than he’d been before. He was also awkwardly sprawled at Breakdown’s pedes. 

“Knock Out?” Breakdown asked incredulously, holding a cube of energon half-way up to his mouth. 

Knock Out jumped to his feet and slapped the drink out of Breakdown’s servo. “Don’t drink that!” he cried, turning to the other Stunticons. “None of you! Don’t drink anything.” 

“What the frag is going on?” Drag Strip asked. 

“Your drinks are poisoned, Motormaster is trying to kill us, and we need to get out of here _now_ ,” Knock Out said. 

Then the shooting started.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Breakdown dove for cover, grabbing a table and tipping it in front of Knock Out and the rest of the Stunticons.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw: violence, discussions of violence

Breakdown dove for cover, grabbing a table and tipping it in front of Knock Out and the rest of the Stunticons. Laser fire slammed into the decorative metal surfacing, and Knock Out flinched. More party-goers were taking notice of the commotion, milling around frantically - someone was going to make a break for the door any second now. 

So far, everything had happened too fast for the guards to react; the blaster fire was all coming from one corner of the room, where Knock Out could vaguely hear Motormaster shouting. The telltale buzz of unsecured comm chatter was starting to fill the air as people asked for orders and demanded explanations. 

Knock Out needed to get the Stunticons out before everyone got their act together. He hadn’t forgotten the stranger’s warning - if they missed their chance and the place went into lockdown, they wouldn’t be getting out alive. 

“Breakdown,” Knock Out hissed, “do you still have that gun?” 

“Yeah, I have it but - “ 

“Give it to me,” Knock Out interrupted. 

Breakdown, looking frantic and confused, handed the weapon over. 

“Okay, now transform and drive out those doors as fast you can. Put Drag Strip in front and try to block shots coming at him if you can - his armour isn’t built to take blaster fire. Once you get out in the corridor, split up and scatter. Keep driving until you’re sure that you haven’t been followed - we’ll meet up in the alley where we found Motormaster and Dead End at the start of next shift.” 

“Oh - okay. Knock Out, shit, how did you even come up with that plan? Also, what are you going to do?” Breakdown was staring at the medic like he was from another planet. 

Well. Knock Out hadn’t spent the hectic dash across the room with nothing in his processor but panic and the wish that he actually knew how to drive - he’d also thought about what he’d do on the off-chance that he found his team in time. And now that he had? He wasn’t going to waste it. 

“I’m going to make whoever’s shooting at us think twice - now go!” 

Dead End, Wildrider and Drag Strip shifted into their alt-modes, shoving nearby bots out of the way to make space. Breakdown was still staring at Knock Out, visibly hesitating. Knock Out looked away, leaning around the edge of the table and firing vaguely in the direction of Motormaster’s voice. 

“Go, seriously Breakdown. I’ll be right behind you,” he insisted. 

“You’d better be.” 

“You think I’d let anyone kill me now, before I’ve even had the chance to properly enjoy my new alt-mode? Not likely,” Knock Out laughed, oozing false confidence. It was pretty convincing, if he did say so himself. 

Breakdown nodded, transforming and herding the rest of the Stunticons through the crowd, to the door. Knock Out didn’t know where the other bot - Bulkhead? - had ended up, but he didn’t have time to worry about it. The shots hitting his cover-table were starting to do some real damage, and when he peeked out to do some shooting of his own, he could see glimpses of a large grey frame moving towards him. 

Frag. Knock Out had wanted to buy more time for the Stunticons to get away, but there was no chance he could beat Motormaster in any kind of physical fight. Time to wrap this up and get out of here. He took a couple of last-second shots, not really aiming, then transformed. 

Knock Out slammed his gas pedal, and drove for the doors. Party-goers were running now, crushing towards the entrance, trying frantically to get out of the line of fire. Knock Out didn’t have time to try to get through them - he just drove, hitting the backs of mechs’ knees, knocking them off their feet, and feeling them roll over his roof or fall by the wayside. It was fine - none of the damage he was doing would be instantly lethal. And if it was? Well. He didn’t exactly have any other options. 

Some part of him was half-expecting to find the doors closed when he got through the crowd, but instead he just kept driving and driving. The massive crush of bots continued out into the corridor and down the hallway; where had all of these people even come from? Why were they milling around like fools instead of getting the frag out of there? Not his problem - unlike the sound of gunfire over his back bumper.

The crowd was thinning now; good for his speed, but bad for cover. He just needed to get out of this fragging swanky part of town and into the back alleys that he actually knew. Knock Out pushed himself a little harder. It felt both great and awful; his wheels almost had a life of their own, slipping and sliding over the grimy metal floors, turning when he least expected it. His body had been _other_ for so long that trying to handle it now - especially in alt-mode - was strange. The unfamiliar routines filled his processor, dancing between loss of control and transcendence. 

If he wasn’t running for his fragging life, he might have even enjoyed it. 

It had been kliks since he’d hit anyone with his front bumper, and the corridors were getting smaller and darker - either he was getting away, or there were guards behind him that were waiting to finish him off with no witnesses. 

He saw a symbol scrawled next to a half-open door, and thanked Primus for his luck. Bots were always cutting temp-passages between their squats and empty storage spaces or maintenance corridors; he’d taken advantage of them running from a john or a mark more than once. Chances were, the rich racers and enforcers Pitboss kept on staff wouldn’t have any idea what the symbol meant, either. Once Knock Out made it to that door, he could slip into the web of unmapped alleys, where he’d spent so much of his time before the Stunticons, and be as good as home free. 

The roar of his engine echoed off the metal walls - too damn loud to hear if anyone was behind him, but his unfamiliar alt-mode sensors weren’t picking anything up, as far as he could tell. Well, if nothing else, he still had the gun, Knock Out decided, pushing his engine just a little faster until he could turn sharply and slam through the marked door. 

He transformed with a graceful flip, landing on his feet - Primus, did that ever feel good - and started running. 

Dingy rooms, makeshift doors and sealed bolt-holes flicked past his optics as he moved, never slowing, through the back rooms and alleys that made up so much of the Undercarriage. Knock Out made sure to turn sharply, backtrack and change course whenever he could get away with it; he didn’t think anyone was following him, but he needed to keep moving until he could rendezvous with the Stunticons. 

Eventually he made his exhausted way to the back alley where they’d found Motormaster and Dead End locked in an awkward tableau - one that, he now knew, would have ended with Dead End offlined and spirited away to Quickpulse’s clinic to be taken apart and sold. 

Knock Out found a shadowed corner, and curled up to wait for the rest of his team. 

\-- 

Finally, Breakdown arrived. 

Knock Out felt like he’d been alternating between near-catatonia and vibrating anxiety for cycles - but Breakdown was here now, looking mostly fine. 

“Did everyone else make it out?” Knock Out asked, softly. There was no one around to overhear, but he couldn’t shake the desire to whisper, to make himself small - to hide. It was a familiar feeling. 

Breakdown flinched at the sound of Knock Out’s voice, looking around. The medic couldn’t bring himself to stand up - not to mention, he was seriously low on energon, and his hydraulics were shot from all the running - so he lifted a hand and waved. 

“You okay, KO? Need some more remote doctoring?” Breakdown’s voice was gentle, forcing a little warmth into the dark alley. He crouched down, flicking on his smallest lights and looking over Knock Out’s frame. 

“I’m fine,” Knock Out replied, “just low on fuel - I didn’t manage to find that free cube I was looking for. Did Dead End, Wildrider and Drag Strip make it out?” 

“Yeah, they’re fine too. We figured it’d be safer to hole up separately for now. Until we figure out - well. We can worry about that later. Right now, let’s get you fueled up.” 

Breakdown pulled a sealed cube of mid-grade from his subspace and handed it over.

“This isn’t from the party, right?” Knock Out asked. 

“Nah, from home.” 

“Okay.” 

Knock Out drank, barely tasting the fuel. Everything felt a little too close, but somehow out of reach. Breakdown was here. It would be fine. Somehow. 

“Did you want to just - stay here for a bit?” Breakdown asked hesitantly. Knock Out could hear his vents wheezing with exhaustion and stress. 

“No,” the medic replied, “I have a place nearby, though. We can hide out there for a few shifts, at least.” 

“Okay,” Breakdown agreed. “Can you - walk? Do you think?” 

Knock Out wasn’t entirely sure that he could, but he would certainly try. 

His chassis felt like it was on fire. The stress of transforming into an alt that his frame was still only barely compatible with had taken a greater toll than he’d anticipated. Oh, sure, his self-repair routines were capable of turning his cockpit canopy into a windshield, and replacing his chest-turbines with headlights - but it wasn’t easy, or quick. 

In a perfect world, he’d be spending the next several shifts in berth, recharging and drinking lots of energon loaded with mineral supplements. A few bags of silica chips and copper curls wouldn’t have gone amiss, either. Knock Out had never really developed a taste for solid snacks - they’d been far out of his price range for most of his life - but in this case, the more material his frame had to work with, the better. 

None of that would be happening, now, but Knock Out would make due. Like always. 

He leaned forward, putting his servos on the ground to push his body up - it looked precarious for a moment, but he managed to stay on his feet. No problem. He limped away from the alley, trusting Breakdown to follow him. 

\-- 

“You ready to tell me what happened?” Breakdown asked. 

The green glow of the chem-light made his orange faceplate look sickly and strange, but his EM field was warm and familiar. Knock Out had given up on his paint-job - it was already scratched and burned beyond recognition - and curled up in the blue bot’s arms to ward off the chill of their out-of-way hideout. 

They’d spent some time just sitting in silence, being together, reminding each other without words that they were still alive, and safe enough for now. 

But Breakdown’s question was more than fair; while Knock Out had been struggling with the revelations of the past shift, the Stunticon was mostly just confused. He’d gone to a party to find an alt-mode scan for his friend, and ended up being shot at. Not to mention - 

“Was that Motormaster shooting at us? Was he really there?” 

“Yes, yeah - he was there,” Knock Out confirmed. 

Breakdown stared at the medic; Knock Out could only imagine the look on his face right now. How in the pit was he supposed to explain everything that had happened? Would Breakdown even believe him? The whole thing was so far-fetched. 

“Breakdown? Is it okay if I show you what happened, instead of telling you?” 

“Yeah, sure, KO - you wanna hardline?” 

“Yes,” he said. It was odd - he’d never hardlined before meeting Breakdown, but something about being that close to the big Stunticon felt right. It was supposed to be this terrifying, intimate, even dangerous thing to open your ports to someone; far more so than a spike or valve interface. But with Breakdown, it just felt like an extension of how they normally were together. 

He opened his diagnostic ports and plugged in. 

\--

When it was over, Knock Out wrapped his arms around Breakdown and held him as he cried. He gently unplugged their cables, cutting off the welter of anger, confusion, betrayal and despair that was pulsing through the other mech’s emotional subsystem. The big bot didn’t need to add Knock Out’s emotions to his own - he had enough to try to cope with right now. 

Eventually, Breakdown’s sobs tapered off, and his field hardened from despair to furious determination. 

“I’m going to kill him,” he said. 

Knock Out didn’t disagree with the sentiment, but - “I don’t think we’re going to get the chance. Pitboss didn’t seem like she was going to accept another failure - I think by now Motormaster is in some smelter somewhere, or getting taken apart and sold - like he tried to do to us.” 

Breakdown clenched his fists. “Frag. Who does she think she is, killing him before I get my hands on the fragger?” 

“That’s what I was hoping you could tell me, actually,” Knock Out said. 

“What do you mean?” Breakdown’s optics lost some of their angry glaze, focusing on Knock Out’s face for the first time since they’d plugged in. 

“I mean, I know it was mainly Motormaster trying to get us all offline, but not only did we escape from Pitboss’ people, we also defied her authority and totally ruined her fancy party. Do you think she’s the type to go after us for that?” 

“Oh. Oh, slag,” Breakdown breathed. 

“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” Knock Out sighed. Goodbye, washracks and a berth. Hello, living like a hunted turbo-rat. 

“Oh pits, KO, I need to comm everyone else and tell them. Drags and Wildrider don’t know how serious this is - I told them not to go home, but I don’t know how long that’ll last for. 

“Yeah, tell them. We all need to keep moving - make sure that they don’t stay in any one place for longer than a couple of shifts. And make sure that they don’t go anywhere that they used to frequent - shops, energon houses, game bars,” Knock Out instructed. At least all the time he’d spent living under the radar was being put to good use.

Breakdown made the call, still shaking with badly-suppressed fear for his teammates. Knock Out resolved to move them to one of his bigger shelters next shift - they could meet up with the rest of the Stunticons then. Breakdown would feel better if he could check on them, and Knock Out would feel better if he could look them in the eye when he laid down the law about security precautions. 

For now, though, they couldn’t do much but wait, and hope - it was too dangerous to move so soon after their narrow escape. 

Breakdown ended the comm and rested his helm heavily against the medic’s aching shoulder. Knock Out could feel his anger drifting away, and the endless press of despair began to fill his field. 

“I just - I can’t believe that Motormaster would do that to us,” he murmured. 

“I know,” Knock Out comforted. “He was your best friend for a long time.” 

“I trusted him! I introduced Drag Strip and Dead End to the mech - I told them that we’d make a good team. That he’d be a good team leader. I almost got them killed!”

“First of all, I don’t think Drag Strip and Dead End regret being Stunticons - you guys had a good thing going, for a long time. This doesn’t change any of that. And second, they’re not dead, and neither are you. We’re going to get through this.” 

“Maybe. Maybe they’re still alive - but this pitslag he got us into means that they can’t go home, can’t do their jobs - when the creds run out, they won’t even have anything to fuel on! And for what? A fragging solo show?” 

“Yeah, I didn’t even know those existed,” Knock Out agreed. 

“They don’t - not down here. It’s a thing that rich mechs on the upper levels like - watching big, dirty frames wreck scrap. There’s one on one derbies that are more like fights than races, and big events where all the popular mechs go at each other in a free-for-all. You can make loads of cash doing it, but it’s not easy to get in.” 

“I guess that’s why Motormaster needed the money, then? For a bribe?” 

“Guess so. And he knew that he had fragging nothing to sell - nothing but his teammates,” Breakdown’s voice broke on the last word. 

Knock Out stroked Breakdown’s face as the larger mech shook. “I know, BD. It’s slagged up and horrible, but at least he’s probably dead now. We have to think about the future, not dwell on the past.” 

Breakdown let out a hiss of static, then audibly rebooted his vocalizer. “Hey doc?” 

“Yeah?” 

“Did you just call me ‘BD’?” 

“No.” 

“I think you did,” he laughed wetly. 

“I certainly didn’t,” Knock Out protested. 

“You gave me a nickname! You like me!” Breakdown exclaimed. 

“You already know that I like you, you big dumb idiot,” Knock Out muttered, turning his face away to hide his blush. 

“Yeah, I do,” Breakdown smiled. “Hey doc?” 

“Yeah?” 

“What are we going to do now?” 

“I think I might have a plan,” Knock Out said.


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He took a deep vent, and said: “I’m going to win the Quarterly Benefit 500.”
> 
> Breakdown laughed. “Good one, KO. Now c’mon - tell me the actual plan.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw: brief description of a car accident - no one is hurt.

Knock Out and Breakdown were, at this point, a complete mess of tangled limbs and clashing kibble. He wasn’t sure how they’d managed this position, but it was comfortable, so he wasn’t complaining. Well - he might have felt a twinge of regret when he thought about his paintjob. But other than that, it was fine. 

Knock Out wasn’t sure when it had started feeling so right, to be close to Breakdown. He’d spent so long without physical contact - he would have thought the change would be jarring. Instead, this thing between them had grown slowly and inevitably, until they were here, hiding out in an old storage closet, but somehow still feeling safe. It was weird. But not - not bad-weird. Not bad at all, Knock Out decided, tucking his face more firmly against the side of Breakdown’s helm. 

Maybe his plan wasn’t that crazy. Sure - he might be giving up his one and only shot at a legitimate life outside the Undercarriage. But if that was what it took to save Breakdown and the Stunticons, it was worth it. 

He took a deep vent, and said: “I’m going to win the Quarterly Benefit 500.”

Breakdown laughed. “Good one, KO. Now c’mon - tell me the actual plan.” 

“What’s funny?” Knock Out asked, coldly. He was almost surprised by how much Breakdown’s reaction hurt. He’d just been thinking such nice thoughts about the mech, too!

“Doc - you know how many people enter that thing, right? And most of them are sparked racers, who’ve been training their whole lives for it.” 

“I’m a racer now, too!” Knock Out protested. 

“Yeah, I know you are, KO,” Breakdown sighed. “But people die in that race. It’s no-rules, y’know? Bots come out literally covered in knives - I don’t want anything to happen to you.” 

“Anything like getting cut up for parts by a mob boss?”

Breakdown winced. 

“I know it won’t be easy,” Knock Out continued, “but it’s the only thing I can think of that might actually get us out of this mess.” 

“I mean, sure - if someone won, they could definitely ask for protection from Pitboss and her contacts - the government would be just as happy to grant a favour that didn’t cost them anything. But, KO, that doesn’t mean winning is actually possible.” 

“Isn’t it worth a try, at least?”

“Maybe,” Breakdown sounded more defeated than hopeful. “If only Drag Strip didn’t have that damn lifetime racing ban, he might have been almost fast enough.” 

“What did he even do? He never tells me when I ask.” 

“Primus, doc, I don’t have the energy for that story right now. It’s enough to say that it was a huge mess, and there’s no way Drags is ever setting his wheels on an official track again. Maybe Dead End could do it, but -” Breakdown broke off with a sigh. 

“No, Dead End wouldn’t make it. And Wildrider would be worse. It has to be me, if anyone,” Knock Out said. 

“Maybe I should do it,” Breakdown mused. “If I could shoot the fastest racers with some kind of gun, and just beat everyone up... I mean, they say no rules, if they really mean no rules, it might be fine?” 

Knock Out lifted his head and stared. “No. That’s a terrible plan.” 

“Yeah, probably,” the blue mech agreed. 

“But, okay Breakdown, listen - I was already planning to win the Quarterly Benefit,” Knock Out admitted. 

“Wait, what?” 

“I’ve been - I’ve been thinking about this for a while,” Knock Out said, voice trembling. 

“What do you mean? Why?” Breakdown asked, worriedly. 

“Look - I. I thought that if I actually became a racer - a four-wheeler frame, like I always wanted - then. Maybe. I could become a real medic, too.” 

“What do you mean, doc? You already are a real medic. You’ve saved the whole team’s lives! Doesn’t get any realer than that.” Breakdown’s voice sounded so sincere, it was painful to listen to. 

“Of course it does,” Knock Out laughed bitterly. “This isn’t real medicine, Breakdown - this is back-alley scrap. Frag, you think a real doctor pours energon out of dead bodies into their patients? No. I don’t want to just - scrape along, patching people up. I want to make mechs better. I want to make them perfect. And I want the fragging medical license and the supplies and facilities to do it. I don’t want to live like - like this - for the rest of my life.” 

“Oh,” Breakdown said. 

Knock Out froze. Breakdown’s field, which had been filled with warmth and fear and friendship and hopelessness, went suddenly flat and unreadable. Knock Out opened his mouth, filled with desperation to say something - but what? What was wrong? 

“You- you want to leave us, then,” Breakdown said, resigned. Oh, thank Primus - the big bot always came through. And with such an easily-fixed problem, too! 

“No! Not at all! I want you to come with me,” Knock Out explained. “If I was a real doctor, topside, I’d have more than enough energon for all of us - you and the team wouldn’t have to get scrapped every other shift. I don’t want to leave, I just want to help. I don’t want to be a burden on you and the Stunticons anymore.” 

“Primus, KO, we couldn’t live topside - Drags and Wildrider would probably get arrested on sight, for one thing,” Breakdown exclaimed. He was trying to sound annoyed, but Knock Out could feel the creeping happiness as his field came back to life. 

“Not like it matters, anyway. It won’t be happening, now,” Knock Out said, trying to sound matter-of-fact. He couldn’t help a little pang of regret for a dream he’d barely admitted to himself, but. It was better than getting cut up for parts by a mob boss. 

He continued resolutely: “Still, I’ve thought this through more than you think, Breakdown. I might not be a sparked racer, but I’ve got a jet engine, and systems that can take speeds most grounders couldn’t even dream of. It’ll take a load of energon and maybe some practice, but this frame has the potential to be faster than most.” 

Breakdown’s orange face scrunched into an unreadable expression. 

“I mean, I believe you, doc. You definitely know more about racing frames than I do. But, uh. I saw you trying to drive through the party earlier…” He trailed off. 

“Well. Yes. I need some practice,” Knock Out agreed reluctantly. “But there’s plenty of time for that! You and the rest of the team can teach me how to drive properly, and how to keep from getting slagged on the track. A few lessons, and I’ll be good to go!” 

Breakdown coughed. Knock Out generously chose not to take offence. 

“We can give it a shot, I guess,” Breakdown shrugged. 

\-- 

“Oh-ho, nice paint transfers, you two!” Drag Strip called. 

Knock Out looked down at his frame in the bright lights of the practice track they’d broken into, and winced. He was covered with scratches and streaks, especially along his doors and front bumper, from all the people he’d hit on his desperate drive for freedom - and his legs and waist were worse, marked all over with Breakdown’s deep blue. It was irritating - his finish had been so perfect, only a few shifts ago - but it didn’t leave Knock Out feeling as disgusted as usual. Odd. 

“Get your mind out of the gutter, Drag Strip!” Breakdown snapped, voice thick with - annoyance? Knock Out hadn’t thought the big mech cared much about his paint, but perhaps he was turning a corner. When they were free again, he’d have to introduce him to the wonders of high-quality wax. 

Ignoring Drag Strip’s laughter, Knock Out walked over to check on Dead End. The racer looked even more morose than usual, but physically he was probably in the best shape of any of them. 

“What do you want?” Dead End asked. 

“Nothing much, just your help learning how to race,” Knock Out replied with a smirk. The best way to deal with Dead End’s moods was to ignore them, in his opinion. 

“Why bother? Especially at a time like this,” the mech sighed. 

“Didn’t Breakdown tell you the plan?” Knock Out asked incredulously. 

“Plan? You mean the joke about the Quarterly Benefit?” 

“It’s not a joke! You Stunticons really need to stop being so pessimistic. This is the best chance we have of getting out from under the gun, but you’re all acting like there’s no point.” 

“There is no point, Knock Out. I’m just being realistic. You might be able to convince Breakdown this is a good idea by batting your optics at him but I, for one, have no desire to watch you get ripped apart topside, and then see the rest of the team get shot once we’ve left the track.” 

“Primus, Dead End! I won’t get ripped apart - and if you help me learn to drive and fight in alt, you can make sure of that. I seriously think we have a chance here - I wouldn’t ask you to risk yourself for anything less.” 

“My life isn’t the problem,” Dead End rolled his eyes. “Do you know how fragged-up Breakdown will be after watching your death live-streamed in high definition?” 

“I mean - it’s that or we watch Breakdown get sliced up for parts. It’s that or let Motormaster and Pitboss get what they want. At least my way, we have a chance,” Knock Out said. 

He felt like he was talking to a brick wall. Why could no one believe that he could get them out of this? Knock Out shook himself, and blew out a vent. If words weren’t working, maybe a demonstration was in order.   
“Look, just - just watch,” he said to Dead End, and transformed. 

It was smoother, now; his frame had a decent start on integrating the new scan, and his transformation seams had worked themselves into place. He rocked back and forth on his wheels for a moment, before revving his engine and hitting the gas. 

Knock Out felt himself shoot forward - the sense of looseness and unpredictability was as strong as ever, like his frame was doing things that he could just barely grasp. Still, he set his sights on Wildrider, half-a-track away and driving wildly, and tried to catch up. 

The world almost seemed to blur as he drove, falling away until all he saw was Wildrider’s dark, dinged-up form in front of him, growing as he got closer and closer. The mech must have sensed Knock Out coming up behind him, because he stopped turning donuts and sped up, trying to get away from the red racer who was almost on his tail. 

Knock Out laughed, pushing himself a little harder. Wildrider was no slouch in the speed department, but he wasn’t pulling away nearly fast enough. His bumper was level with Wildrider’s rear now, then his doors, and suddenly they were neck-and-neck. Knock Out poured on another burst of speed and pulled ahead. He could hear Wildrider cursing even over the combined roaring of their engines as he drove ever-faster, leaving the Stunticon in the dust. 

It felt really, really good. He was coming up on the curve now - the best thing to do would be to slow down, take it nice and easy, and then speed back to see the team’s reactions. On the other hand - Knock Out didn’t really want to hit the brakes. It was fine, anyway. The track was big, and Wildrider was far behind him; even if he couldn’t stay in his lane, there was nothing to hit. 

Knock Out leaned into the turn, feeling his wheels bite into the smooth metal of the track surface - and fail to hold. His brakes shrieked as he tried to slow down, his tires slipped, and he lost control. Knock Out jerked his wheel to one side and then the other, trying to pull himself out of the spin. He looped, crazily, sensors blurring as his frame moved, until - thud. 

Time seemed to come back to him all in a rush as he hit the bank of sandbags at the edge of the track. Primus, that did not feel good. Knock Out stayed still for a moment, unwilling to risk the transformation into root mode. He knew that he wasn’t severely damaged - nothing more than some cosmetic dents, likely - but he couldn’t risk purging his tanks when they were so low on energon already. Not to mention that his processor was all over the place. He set up a soft reboot and focused on venting. 

The screeching of Drag Strip and Wildrider pulling up to his side, followed shortly by Dead End and Breakdown, didn’t really help him calm down, though. 

“Holy frag! That was amazing!” Wildrider shouted. 

“Primus, Knock Out, you never told me you could drive like that!” Drag Strip accused. 

“Are you alright, KO?” Breakdown asked, awkwardly patting the medic’s roof. 

Knock Out shook them off and transformed, thankfully managing to stay on his feet. “I’m okay,” he said. 

“Well, you’re fast enough,” Dead End admitted, “but you need some serious driving practice.” 

“That’s what I was trying to tell you!” Knock Out exclaimed. 

Dead End and Drag Strip looked at each other. Dead End nodded. Drag Strip glanced over Knock Out’s messy, battered frame, and then nodded back. 

“Let’s get to work, then,” he said. 

\-- 

“Just a few lessons, I said. Piece of energon-pie, I said,” Knock Out muttered to himself, slung over Breakdown’s shoulder. 

“I told you it wouldn’t be easy, doc,” the big mech rumbled with a laugh. 

“Easy! This is going to kill me! I should have just stayed in that damn recycling clinic.” 

“Aw, doc, you don’t mean that.” 

“No, I don’t. But I really wish I could walk right now,” Knock Out sighed. 

He was completely exhausted. They’d spent the last two-dozen shifts alternating between recharging in closets and sneaking into racetracks and empty rooms to practice driving and car-to-car fighting, and frankly, Knock Out was getting his aft kicked. Drag Strip and Dead End didn’t let up for half a klik - if he wasn’t practising braking drills, he was turning donuts or doing sprints. His tires were going to go bald from the endless driving - and that was without mentioning the constant cravings for minerals and decent quality energon his systems pinged him with. 

This particular shift had seen all of the Stunticons together - something they rarely felt was safe to risk, considering that they were still trying to stay off Pitboss’ radar - and had been accordingly intense. Knock Out’d had to stay right on Drag Strip’s tail, driving just slightly under the yellow racer’s top speed, as Wildrider and Breakdown came at him from the sides and back, trying to throw him off course. 

He’d been feeling really good about his progress - actually staying on track when Breakdown’s huge frame slammed him was no small feat - until he’d stopped driving and tried to transform. Knock Out had flopped out of alt and into his root mode, and laid on the ground with nothing below his waist responding to his processor’s commands. 

It was his own fault - he’d decided to forego recharge the previous shift, in favour of welding together and installing some retractable blade mods on his wheels. They worked really well, too - it was just too much to ask his frame to integrate new parts, while running an intense race, on no sleep, after he’d been pushing himself to the brink for so long. He’d be fine with a couple shifts’ rest. 

The new blades looked great, though. He’d lucked into some gold-plated covers, so they didn’t stand out too much against his rims, but when they slid out they were wicked sharp, and long enough to pop a competitor’s tires with ease. Breakdown might be carrying him like a new-spark right now, but Knock Out was more dangerous than he’d ever been.

Speaking of the big bot, though, Knock Out could feel little hints of something unusual surfacing in his field. Something almost like - excitement? 

“So, how badly do you miss the washracks right now, doc?” Breakdown asked with a laugh. Ahh - excitement at making fun of Knock Out. Well, it wasn’t like he could deny it - Breakdown knew him too well to bother playing it cool. 

“Oh pits, so much more than you know,” he sighed.

“Well, I’ve got something I think you’ll like, then,” Breakdown replied. 

“What?” Knock Out wiggled as much as he could in his upside-down position, unable to contain his excitement. “What is it?” 

“I dunno doc, maybe we should wait until you’re feeling better,” he teased. 

“Breakdown! So help me Primus, if you have some touch-up paint or something and you make me wait a whole shift before handing it over - !” 

“It’s something even better than that,” the blue mech said, hauling open the door - disguised as a pile of scrap - to reveal their latest hidey-hole. He gently lifted Knock Out off his shoulder kibble and tucked the racer’s limp frame into the back corner of the small room. 

Pulling the door shut behind him, Breakdown knelt down in front of Knock Out and pulled out a full cube of solvent, a tin of wax and pile of polishing cloths. 

Knock Out stared in silence for a moment. 

“Where did you get these?” he breathed. He didn’t want to talk too loudly - any sudden moves might shatter the wonderful illusion. 

“From Dead End,” Breakdown smiled. “So, do you want me to wash you, or do you want to wait and do it yourself?” 

Knock Out looked at his shaking servos and shrugged. 

“If you want to do it, I certainly won’t object,” he said. 

Breakdown rolled his optics, but his faux-annoyed expression couldn't cover up the grin on his face as he started polishing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much to everyone who's been reading this so far!   
> There will be a short break next week, as I have a bunch of posts planned for Jazzwave Week (!!), but Chapter Fourteen will be out on October 18th c:


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Hi! I’d like a sign-up form for the Quarterly Benefit 500, please.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a little car on car violence, and a lot of Knock Out introspection.

“Hi! I’d like a sign-up form for the Quarterly Benefit 500, please.” 

The bot behind the counter looked Knock Out up and down, and rebooted his optics sarcastically. 

“Sure, sweetie. What’s your conjunx’s name?” 

Oh - so that was how it was going to be, was it? 

“I’ll be the one entering, actually,” Knock Out replied, with his most poisonous smile. 

The bot actually looked a little intimidated - which was very gratifying - thankfully didn’t question him any further, handing over a datapad for Knock Out to fill out. He accepted the form graciously, walking over to the plush little waiting area to fill it out. 

Everything on this level was so excessively fancy; why bother with a bunch of chairs and couches for the two kliks it would take to fill out a datapad? Attempting to blend in, Knock Out decided to sit in one of the fluffy seats - and quickly regretted the decision. It would take longer to extract himself from the padding than it would to type his designation, spark date and emergency contact number. Primus, rich bots were something else. 

Eventually, he managed to get back to the front desk without causing any property damage or making a scene, and proudly handed over the data pad. 

Instead of plugging it in or uploading it to the system, the bot opened the file and started scrolling though. It wasn’t like Knock Out was an expert in data work or anything, but that seemed odd. 

His suspicions were confirmed when the mech let out a derisive static blat and said: “Knock Out? I’ve never heard of you.” 

“Well, I’m afraid I haven’t heard of you, either,” the medic drawled, examining the paint on his claws. 

“Oh, well. I’m just a secretary, after all - no one important. But a pretty little racer like you? I bet you’ve managed to place - maybe even fourth or fifth in one of those regional races?” 

Knock Out locked optics with mech - deep red to pale, watery blue - and stared. The little bot flinched. Knock Out smiled. 

“Is the registration all taken care of, then?” he asked. 

“Yes -” 

“Alright then,” Knock Out cut the mech off. “You have a lovely day, now.” 

He swept out of room, almost missing the click of his heel thrusters. Though really, he could always mod his pedes. Maybe add a nice little lift at the back? There was no reason his tires had to hit the ground when he walked - Primus knew he wasn’t about to roll around on his heel wheels in root mode like some kind of newspark, and it was better to avoid wearing down the treads, anyway. 

Knock Out did his best to sink fully into daydreaming about future mods, but it was hard to go to his happy place while navigating upper-level corridors, especially after dealing with such appalling rudeness. Everything up here was just so - clean. It was weird enough walking through the commercial districts, seeing all of the unnecessary goods on display, but half the time there was just - nothing. Nothing but meters and meters of blank, metal walls, without a side-hall, door or enclosure to be found. 

There wasn’t even any fragging graffiti to break up the monotony. He was checking the map he’d downloaded every few kliks just to keep from getting lost. Had these high-class bots ever heard of landmarks? Primus. He’d be happy when he got back home. 

The thought prompted his memory-banks to bring up the image of the Stunticons’ ex-hab, and Knock Out winced. He missed it more than he’d ever say, but that feeling - the feeling of having someone to go, somewhere safe - was already starting to fade. He and Breakdown had been in and out of closets and back alley squats for nearly as long as they’d shared that warm berth - wait, no. 

Not like that. They hadn’t slept together, of course. They’d traded off, taking turns in the berth or making do in the living room. Primus, for a moment he’d imagined the two of them actually recharging together, curled around each other in that warm, safe bed. Ridiculous. 

They were recharging together now, though. It only made sense! Knock Out got cold - he always had, the new frame was a little better, but not much - and Breakdown was big enough to throw off a lot of heat, even when his engine was idling. It was just easier to hold each other close in the dark - it was logical, and anyway, a part of having each other’s backs, like friends do. 

And if being that close to Breakdown made Knock Out’s spark spin in a way that he’d never felt before? It was probably nothing to worry about. He pressed the feelings back down, and tried to focus on not getting lost in the weird, barren upper levels. There - finally. A stairwell. A few more levels down, and then he’d be able to get back into the territory that he really knew. 

Technically, people weren’t supposed to live in the Undercarriage. It was just leftover space between Navitas’ great treads - too loud and unstable for the Founders to bother with, it was filled with the heavy grinding of the titan’s systems, jostled by endless thumps and jerks. Somebots thought it was haunted; Knock Out remembered hearing scary stories in the creche. He’d felt a little shiver or two of fear, himself, when he’d first come down, until someone had explained that there was nothing sinister about the noises - it was just the city trying to make its way over the uneven surface of the planet. 

Strange to think of being on a planet, though - outside was definitely not a concept that got explained to newsparks by the time Knock Out came online. He’d spent his entire life here in Delta, and only vaguely knew that there were other cities out there. Other cities, with their own races, and probably their own slums, where other sparked flight-frames winked out without ever seeing the sky. 

Stranger still, to think that the Founders hadn’t anticipated that flying would be impossible, around a city that was endlessly rolling between flaming death and icy cold. That the speed, the turbulence, the unpredictable air currents would send those few, brave jets on the initial crew to their deaths. Much less that Navitas would continue to build flight-frames, generations later. 

Someone had said to him, once, that he would have been lucky to die like those Founders did - at least they’d gone out doing what they were made to do. Other newsparks sitting nearby had nodded, but Knock Out felt a gut-deep rejection - one that was still with him today. No, it wasn’t worth it, to die for one single taste of the air. Flying was joyful, of course, but there was so much more that Knock Out wanted to do. So much more to life than a brief moment of glory. 

No - he’d never understood why the other new-builds were so fascinated with the ancient stories of the war of the Thirteen Primes, with the idea of glorious battle. Of sacrifice. Knock Out wasn’t interested in sacrifice, unless it eventually got him something better than what he’d given up. 

He’d always identified more with those mechs who’d first broken into the Undercarriage, opening it and filling it with homes and shops and underground race tracks. They understood that life was about making it work - finding a way to keep going, no matter what. About scrabbling around if you had to, in the noise and the dark, until you could make something better. 

For as long as he could remember, Knock Out had been determined to be better. And now, finally, he was. Physically, at least - his new frame was a work of art, if he did say so himself. 

He still needed to be good enough to save his friends, and even after that, good enough to put energon in their tanks, to keep all of them healthy and safe. He could do it, though. Knock Out knew that he could do anything, if he was determined enough. 

Right now, being determined enough meant walking past that deliciously familiar maintenance hatch - one of his favourite back routes to a hidey-hole, and from there the rest of the streets he called home. Instead, he ducked through a doorway, carefully checked for cameras, and then slid into an empty practice track. He had to stay up here for a little longer - but it would be worth it. 

“Knock Out!” Wildrider called, as the ex-jet walked into the racetrack. 

“Finally done goofing off, eh? You ready to get back to work, doc-bot?” Drag Strip asked. 

Breakdown just stared at him like Knock Out was a freshly cracked chem-light, and Breakdown’s optics were having trouble adjusting to the glare. 

“What’s up, Big Blue?” Knock Out asked, feeling almost giddy with the abrupt plunge into familiarity. 

He could always count on the Stunticons to be themselves. It felt good to see Wildrider’s dinged-up frame, Drag Strip’s awful yellow finish, and even Breakdown’s embarrassing wealth of red paint transfers - especially after so long in cold, empty cleanliness. 

Breakdown grinned up at Knock Out, as the medic walked over to where he was casually sprawled on the floor. The strange glazed wonderment was gone out of his optics, which were instead shining with normal, friendly warmth. 

“Just glad we can get back to work, KO.” 

“You’re all really enjoying this, aren’t you?” Knock Out asked. 

Truly, the Stunticons had thrown themselves into his training - or what they called ‘teaching the doc to drive’ - with their whole sparks. It was nice to see everyone so excited - though possibly Dead End’s absence was skewing his perception. The morose mech was off on some kind of mysterious date, leaving the mechs-to-energy ratio in the room much higher than Knock Out was used to. 

“I’m not gonna lie, it’s fun to get my wheels rolling without having to scrap anyone,” Breakdown laughed. “It’s been a long time since I enjoyed driving like this.” 

“Scrapping mechs is fun! But racing is fun too!” Wildrider enthused. 

“He’s right, actually,” Drag Strip added, “it’s nice getting to just go and go, instead of ducking for cover every klik. Of course, it’s also nice being the fastest one on the track.” 

“I dunno, Drags,” Breakdown teased, “KO is getting pretty good - you might not have that title for much longer.” 

“I’ll still be faster than you, old mech!” Drag Strip called, transforming and peeling away. Wildrider took off after him with a happy shout. 

Breakdown turned to Knock Out with a smile. “Got yourself all signed up, then?” he asked. 

“Yes, no thanks to the bot at the registration desk. He thought I was there to enter my conjunx endura! Can you believe that?” Knock Out was getting a little heated just thinking about it. 

“Well,” Breakdown mused, “I guess you’ll make somebot very lucky, someday.” He smiled, a little sadly. 

“What? It wasn’t a compliment, Breakdown - and what’s up with that wistful look in your optics? That fragger was talking down to me! He thought I was some kind of trophy car!” 

Breakdown shook himself. “No, yeah - you’re right, doc. He shouldn’t have been rude to you. Anyone with half an optic can see that you’re an independent bot. I just meant, someday, y’know.” 

“Primus! I don’t have time for a conjunx, anyway. I have far too much to do,” Knock Out huffed. 

“Yeah,” Breakdown said. 

“Well, okay. We should get going, anyway. What’s the plan for training this shift?” 

“Let’s catch up to Drag Strip and Wildrider, they can fill you in,” Breakdown said, transforming and driving away. 

“Oh, alright,” Knock Out said, realizing even as his vocalizer clicked on that he was standing alone, talking to himself. 

\-- 

“Pretty good, doc, but give it one more shot!” Drag Strip shouted from the sidelines. 

Knock Out groaned. 

“Yeah, you call that a stab wound? I’ve still got air in my tires here, kiddo,” Wildrider laughed. 

“I’m older than you!” Knock Out protested. 

“Still don’t believe it, sorry,” Wildrider sang back, turning a donut. 

How the mech maintained this energy level after nearly a shift and a half of racing was a mystery, honestly. Knock Out himself was about ready to pass out, but he limped back to the starting line to try the move again. 

The idea was to use the new blade-mods in his wheels to puncture the tires of the mechs that ended up next to him at the starting line, as soon as the gun went off. If he could take out two competitors at once, and create enough space to maneuver in, it would let him start off the race with an advantage, and make it easier to get to the front of the pack sooner rather than later. 

All of which sounded great in theory, but was a little more complicated in practice. Wildrider and Drag Strip weren’t taking it easy on him, either - they were racing like they really meant it, and getting a few digs of their own in with their internal weaponry. 

Breakdown was sitting on the sidelines, all four of his tires completely deflated. Knock Out had patched them extensively, of course, and his self repair should have them ready for re-inflation within a few shifts, but. He didn’t know. There was an odd mood hanging between them, somehow, since the conversation earlier. And now the big bot was just sitting there, picking at the paint on his fingers, barely even watching Knock Out practice. Ugh. He needed to shake this off and get his head back on the track! 

Knock Out pressed his chassis lower to the ground - better leverage for the initial acceleration, and it protected his internals - and revved his engine. 

“Let’s go, slowpokes!” he called. 

“You’re the slowpoke, slowpoke!” Wildrider pouted. 

Drag Strip winced. “We really need to brush up your heckling, doc. That was just embarrassing.” 

“Would you rather I called you a poorly-designed clunker who couldn’t win a race against a microscope?” Knock Out offered.

“Sort of a self-burn, since you designed this frame, but - better. Definitely better,” Drag Strip replied. 

“I dunno, there’s something to be said for slowpoke. It gets the point across,” Wildrider said. 

Drag Strip wiggled awkwardly on his wheels, clearly forgetting he was in alt and trying to shake his head. Knock Out was startled into a laugh - it was weirdly cute, seeing such a childish move from the normally-arrogant racer. 

Drag Strip’s engine revved and his field flushed with embarrassment, flaring out to brush Knock Out’s door. 

“Let’s just get going,” he muttered, playing their countdown recording. 

The faux-announcer shouted ‘go’, the racecars leapt forward off the starting line, and Knock Out shot his blades out. He tried to keep his sensors forward, not letting the blades take over his attention - the most important thing was to move, to try to get that all-important lead - taking out the competition was the secondary goal. Eyes on the track, keep the cables tensed and the energon flowing, and - yes! 

Vibration shuddered through his frame as his right-side blade slashed downward, nearly pulling Wildrider’s tire clean off, as his left ripped through the centre of Drag Strip’s wheel. Knock Out managed to stay in control, retracting the blades and shooting forward as his teammates spun out. In a real race, they’d have likely started a chain reaction of crashes, hopefully taking out others before they were pulled off the track by the pit crews. 

Knock Out let the rush of victory push him forward, flying through a full lap before coming back to patch everyone up. Primus. He was really getting good at this. 

\-- 

“You know Drag Strip is going to be complaining about his wheels for ages now, right?” Breakdown asked. 

“I fixed them!” Knock Out protested. “I even buffed out the scratches with one of my last good cloths. He’ll be driving around like nothing happened in two or three shifts.” 

“Sure, but he’s also not gonna like that you actually managed to get him,” Breakdown laughed. 

“I was just doing what he said!”

Knock Out had been taking teasing like this from the Stunticons basically non-stop since their training session had ended - he was getting tired of defending himself. Well no, not really. As annoying as it was, it felt good to be a part of the banter. He was just tired, generally. At least he was walking back to tonight’s hiding spot under his own power, for once. 

“Yeah that’s true. Y’know, you’re getting pretty good, doc. I sure never expected you’d be this fast,” Breakdown mused. 

“I was fast back when I was a plane too,” Knock Out sniffed. 

“Sure yeah, but - I dunno. It’s just a bit different, seeing it in person, I guess.” 

Knock Out nodded thoughtfully, and they walked in mellow silence for a while. 

“Do you - do you think I have a chance? Or are we just - I don’t know. Just killing time until we get scrapped?” Knock Out asked. 

The question had been rolling around in his mind for a long time, and he still wasn’t sure if he was ready to hear the answer. But it felt like a good shift to be brave. 

“Y’know, KO - I really thought we were just sort of - not killing time, but pinning our hopes on a chance that was no chance at all. And that was okay! Better to have some kind of hope than live like a hunted turborat. But honestly, now? I’ve never seen anyone get so good, so fast. It’s still kind of a crazy chance to take, but I’m starting to think it might be a real one.” 

Knock Out felt his vents hitch, and his optics fill with washer fluid. He looked up, trying to keep the tears from falling, and kept stumbling forward. 

Breakdown reached out, took his hand, and guided him for a while, until Knock Out could see again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Very sincere apologies for how late this one is, we will return to our regularly scheduled Sunday's from here on out!   
> Also, I feel like Knock Out should do some qualifying rounds before the big event, but in canon, Blurr just... shows up and joins the race? So, guess not.


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Knock Out and the Stunticons get ready for the big race.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Make sure that you've seen chapter 14 (posted on thursday the 22nd) before reading this one!

“So, you’re really going to do this?” 

“It’s a little late to back out now,” Knock Out said. 

“Not really. Not if you decide you want to,” Dead End replied. 

Knock Out shook his head angrily. 

“Did Wildrider tell you what happened to him a couple shifts ago?” he asked. 

“He did, but still,” Dead End shrugged.

“Still nothing! Pitboss’ goons almost caught him! We’re just lucky that they were trying to take him alive - well, and that he’s a crazy fragger. Eventually they’ll get sick of trying to take us in, and start shooting to kill.” 

Dead End hummed in reply, an odd reticence in his field. 

“What? What aren’t you telling me?” Knock Out asked. 

Dead End met his optics and sighed. “Wildrider wasn’t supposed to tell you about that,” he admitted. 

“What do you mean,” Knock Out said, flatly. 

“Look - Knock Out. We don’t need you to worry about us, alright? We can take care of ourselves - we’ve been doing it for a long time, and Pitboss’ vendetta doesn’t change anything. I know you think this is somehow your fault, or your responsibility, but it isn’t. It’s Motormaster’s fault, and the whole team’s responsibility, so just - let us deal with it alright?” 

Knock Out rebooted his optics. 

“So. What you’re saying is, there have been multiple attempts on your life that no one told me about? You’ve been nearly captured or killed multiple times, and then lied to me about it?” Knock Out said - or shrieked, maybe. 

“Mortilus, Knock Out! So what if we did? Everyone is fine, and we knew that you’d react like this.” 

“What am I, some kind of fragging sparkling to the rest of you?” 

“No! You’re the mech who needs to keep his processor on saving our afts, instead of worrying about slag we can deal with ourselves! Please just - let us help,” Dead End said, voice breaking. 

Knock Out felt all the anger drain out of his frame. Well - fine. Maybe Dead End had a point - but that didn’t mean that he had to admit it. 

“And to think,” Knock Out snarked, “I came here to get the details on your big date.” 

“It was nothing,” Dead End muttered, jumping on the change in topic like an extremely uncomfortable life raft. 

“Really? Because I seem to remember that, a couple of shifts ago, you said you’d let Wildrider and Drag Strip run my training over your greyed-out frame. So it doesn’t seem like you’d skip out on practice for ‘nothing’.”

“Ugh fine, but it wasn’t a date! I was just busy.” 

“Busy doing what?” Knock Out asked, swiping a fresh polishing cloth out of Dead End’s hand. 

The other racer had managed to drag a whole tub of solvent into his latest shelter, not to mention a pile of good mesh and enough polish to spare. Where and how he got the supplies remained a mystery to Knock Out, but he wasn’t inclined to complain. 

“I had a thing.” 

“What kind of a thing?” 

“I was,” Dead End paused awkwardly, mouth open. 

After a full klik of mutual staring, Knock Out sputtered a laugh. “What? You can’t think of anything?” 

“I can think of an invocation to Mortilus to deliver me from you,” Dead End muttered. 

Knock Out vented, getting the giggles under control, and looked the other racer in the optic. 

“What’s their name?” he asked. 

“Lightdriver,” Dead End sighed. 

“Primus, they sound like a classy bot,” Knock Out replied, surprised. He’d expected Dead End to be flirting with the cashier at his favourite polish shop, or something - not some mech from the upper levels. 

“I guess he kind of is fancy,” Dead End admitted. 

“Well, now you have to tell me all the details,” Knock Out said, leaning in. 

\-- 

“Lookin’ shiny, doc-bot!” Drag Strip whistled.   
“Thank you,” Knock Out said graciously. “You’d better not scratch me today, or else.” 

“Or else what?” Drag Strip asked, driving closer. 

“Maybe I’ll reveal that I hid a bomb in your processor during surgery,” Knock Out replied. 

Drag Strip snorted. “You’ve been watching a lot of holo-dramas lately, huh?” 

“Primus, yes. Hiding from organized criminals gets so boring after a while. Though I have to say, I don’t appreciate how often the medic seems to turn out evil.”

“Well you know medics!” Drag Strip said. “Sneaky lot. Too much processor, not enough engine.” 

“I’ve got plenty of engine, thank you,” Knock Out sniffed. 

“Well, get it in gear, then! We’ve got a lot to do today.” 

“Oh? Why today?” 

“Doc! After today, it’s exactly thirty shifts ‘til the race.” 

“Yes, I know,” Knock Out replied, puzzled. 

“So, everyone knows it takes thirty shifts of rest and self-repair before your frame is in top form! After today, it’s nothing but light practice, loads of energon and recharge for you,” Drag Strip replied, tone indicating that this was only common sense. 

“Strictly speaking, self-repair timing depends a lot on frametype and fuel quality, not to mention patient history - could be thirty shifts, could be ten or fifty.” 

“No way, doc - It’s thirty, or nothing. Every racer knows that it’s bad luck to try any real driving right before a race. Oh - and absolutely no interfacing! I’d better not see any new paint transfers on Breakdown when we meet up next.” 

Knock Out’s horrified optics locked with Drag Strip’s headlights - obviously, they weren’t emoting, because glass couldn’t really move, but _felt_ the cheesy grin. 

Eventually he managed to mutter something about how he hadn’t interfaced in cycles, but Drag Strip just laughed and drove away. Sulkily, Knock Out transformed and rolled over to meet him at the starting line. 

“Alright, let’s try to do a whole lap at your top speed,” the yellow car instructed, back to being the picture of professionalism. Drag Strip really was taking this seriously. He was also still talking: “...and don’t worry about pacing yourself, I’ve got a bunch of extra fuel. Push it as hard as you can.” 

“Will do, coach,” Knock Out said, revving to build up some heat, feeling his systems tighten and then open all at once as he rushed forward. 

He still wasn’t quite used to how good it felt, opening up his throttle and just driving. The sensation of freedom, the combination of calm and giddiness. He was soon well ahead of Drag Strip, rounding the first turn before the Stunticon had made it past the halfway point on the straightaway. He pushed himself, wringing a little more speed out of his frame, and flew past the finish line. 

Knock Out transformed and lay on the ground, gasping for air to cool his straining systems. Drag Strip didn’t bother trying to finish the lap - he’d made it less than halfway around the track. Instead he turned a tight hairpin and drove directly to where Knock Out had collapsed, quickly flipping into root mode himself, and handed over an energon cube. 

Primus, fuel had never tasted so good - even if it was barely on his glossa for a nanoklik before being gulped down. Knock Out drained the first container and looked up to ask for more, but was shocked out of his focus on food by the strange look on Drag Strip’s face. 

“What?” he asked. 

“Did you time that lap?” the yellow racer asked back, still doing whatever that was with his optics. 

“Um, not actively,” Knock Out said, pulling up his records to check. 

“It was - fast. Really fast. Like, potentially record-breaking,” Drag Strip explained. 

Knock Out was too busy querying his systems over and over again, unable to believe the numbers they were sending back, to reply. 

\-- 

“Knock Outtino!” Wildrider yelled. 

“Primus, Wildrider! A little quieter, please?” 

“Sure, whatever,” the other speedster shrugged. “So, are you ready for some evasion practice?” 

“Wait, you want to race right now?” Knock Out asked. 

“Uh, yeah? Why else would I have told you to meet me at a race-track?” Wildrider looked confused, like he was really pondering the question. 

“I don’t know, I just thought that you wanted to talk or something.” 

“But then - we could just talk? Like I know we can’t comm anymore but -” he broke off, puzzled expression intensifying. 

“No, I know that,” Knock Out replied. “I just thought it was bad luck to race thirty shifts before a big match?” 

“Oh!” Wildrider collapsed, laughing. He genuinely shifted out of alt and into root mode so that he could lay on the ground, clapping his hands and giggling. 

Knock Out was pretty used to this type of behaviour at this point, and sat down next to the Stunticon to wait it out. Several kliks later, Wildrider caught his breath enough to talk. 

“Naw, that’s not real doc - no worries. You can practice without it being bad luck. The interfacing thing though? That’s real. Don’t even think about opening your panels - seriously. I know this from experience.” 

“Uh, okay,” Knock Out agreed hesitantly. 

“C’mon doc, I mean it! I know it’ll be rough to keep your hands off Breakdown, but it’ll be worth it when you win the race.” 

Knock Out was momentarily distracted by the ‘when’ in that sentence sending a glow of good feelings through his spark. Say what you would about Wildrider - he was undeniably a lot to deal with - but the mech hadn’t doubted Knock Out’s abilities for a moment. From the beginning it has been ‘when you win the race’ for him, even as the other Stunticons tried to avoid talking about the future at all. 

But - hang on. 

“Why does everyone think Breakdown and I are interfacing‽” Knock Out shouted. 

“Woah - and you told me not to be loud,” Wildrider complained. 

“Fine, sorry,” Knock Out lowered his voice - they were technically committing a crime by being in this track when it wasn’t in use, and it would be bad if somebot found and reported them. 

“But also, like - are you serious, doc?” Wildrider asked. 

“Yes, of course I’m serious,” Knock Out spluttered.

“Well - it’s because of how you act together. We like to make fun of you for the paint transfers, but that’s not even the main thing. You always look for each other, y’know. It’s the first thing either of you do when walking into a room - and if he’s not there, your face falls, just a little bit. Like, anyone with half a sensor can see that you put each other first,” Wildrider explained. 

“But that’s - that’s just being friends,” Knock Out said, confused. “That’s just - having each other’s backs and looking out for the other person, like friends do.” 

“Okay, sure,” Wildrider agreed, “except that you don’t do that face thing with any of the rest of us.” 

“What do you mean?” 

“Like, with me or Dead End or Drag Strip?” 

“Are we - friends?” Knock Out stuttered. He honestly hadn’t considered that he might be friends with the rest of the Stunticons before. It was a strange thought, but not a bad one, exactly. 

“Um, yeah?” Wildrider was looking at him with something like hurt in his optics. 

“Well, how was I supposed to know that, if you never told me?” Knock Out asked. 

Wildrider blinked. “Because friends have each other’s backs, just like you said. That’s why we’re helping you practice, and why you’re trying to save us from Pitboss. And why I gave you all those sweet energon mixes, and why you saved my life that one time I got beat up.” 

“Oh.” 

“I mean, why did you think we did all those things?” 

“I guess I didn’t really know,” Knock Out admitted. 

“Well, it’s because we’re friends!” Wildrider stated, looking happy to have everything sorted out. 

“But what about Breakdown?” Knock Out asked, feeling worried about something that he couldn’t quite describe. 

“That’s a bit different, I think,” Wildrider mused. 

“But Breakdown and I are definitely friends,” Knock Out said. He didn’t really know what was going on, but he knew that he wanted to keep that, no matter what. 

“Sure, I just think you’re something else, too,” Wildrider agreed. 

\-- 

“Hey, KO! How was the practice?” Breakdown asked, as Knock Out carefully shut the door on their latest shelter. 

“It was alright,” Knock Out said, still feeling a little pensive after his odd conversation with Wildrider. 

“What’s wrong?” Breakdown asked. 

Primus, what wasn’t? Knock Out was getting ready to run the first car-race of his life - a race that his and his friends’ futures were depending on. He had some kind of mysterious relationship with Breakdown, alongside their friendship, that he had no way to define. And, he’d scratched the gorgeous white flame detailing Dead End had done on his doors during practice. 

Knock Out was a confident bot, but there was only so much that one person could cope with. Still - he didn’t want Breakdown to start doubting their plan just because he was having cold pedes. They were in way too deep for Knock Out to change his mind, anyway. Better to change the subject, for now, he decided. He could always talk to Breakdown about the weird friendship stuff later. 

“Drag Strip told me it was bad luck to drive thirty shifts before a race, but Wildrider told me that was fake, so we did some intense evasion drills today. I’m just wondering if you’re going to tell me it was a bad idea too,” he explained, laughing off his concern. 

Breakdown laughed too, replying: “No, don’t worry about that KO. Racers are a superstitious bunch, but I never bought into that stuff.” 

“No?” Knock Out asked, settling down on the floor to rest his tired struts. 

“Naw. They say blue is bad luck too, y’know?” 

“Do they really? And here I just thought it was a boring colour.” 

“Psht - you’re just jealous, doc. You can only dream of a finish like this,” Breakdown said, holding up his scratched, dull blue arm and orange servo illustratively. 

“Mmm, dream of fixing it while you’re in recharge, maybe.”

Breakdown smiled, and Knock Out felt his spark spin a little faster. 

“You know better than to waste your fancy polish on this old frame,” the armoured car said. “It looks much better on you, anyway.” 

“But - that’s not true,” Knock Out protested. He wasn’t sure what it was that bothered him about the idea, but Breakdown’s self-deprecating tone made Knock Out want to defend the mech from himself. 

“Woah - who are you, and what have you done with Knock Out?” Breakdown joked.

“I mean - alright, my frame is an absolute masterpiece, but - you look good too! I don’t want you to think that I don’t appreciate the way you look,” Knock Out said, vocalizer tripping awkwardly over the words. 

Breakdown’s laughter slowed, and he looked at Knock Out with optics that were serious and somehow sad. 

“Do you mean that?” he asked. 

“I do,” Knock Out said, firmly. “I admired your orange faceplate the first time I ever saw you, lying there on my table, and I was so glad that the new glass didn’t filter these lovely yellow optics - not to mention that your hands and hammers have saved my life multiple times!” 

“Maybe,” Breakdown sighed, “but you don’t have to be so nice about it. I know my frame is big and slow and far from pretty. The world isn’t made for bots like me.” 

“Well, it wasn’t made for bots like me either - but who cares? You’re an amazing person, Breakdown! You’re strong and solid because you need to be - Primus knows you’ve carried me and the rest of the Stunticons this far. And - I have to admit. I kind of like it when you pick me up like I’m made of sheet metal.” 

“You practically are made of sheet metal! Especially this new, little frame - with no flappy wings getting in the way, I could probably toss you like a lob-ball,” Breakdown said, lightness slowly returning to his field. 

“Maybe,” Knock Out laughed. “And I’d probably let you. I’d - I’d do a lot for you, Breakdown. Pretty much anything I can think of.” 

“Well, if you can win this race for me, I think that’ll be enough.” 

“Yeah, we can hope,” Knock Out said. 

Breakdown smiled again, and they sat together for a bit, thinking. 

Eventually, Knock Out decided that he had to make something clear. 

“You know it won’t be, though, right?” 

“What do you mean?” Breakdown asked. 

“Even if I win the race - it won’t be enough - it won’t be the end. We’ll still be friends, right? Or whatever this is. Even when you can go back to normal life.” 

“Honestly, KO, I don’t even know what normal life looks like without you in it. No matter what happens, I’ll be there.” 

“Okay,” Knock Out replied, feeling oddly comforted.

“Get some rest, doc,” Breakdown smiled. “The way these past dozen shifts have flown by, the race’ll be here before you know it.” 

\-- 

Knock Out onlined to about a thousand notifications scrolling across his HUD. It was just possible that he’d set too many alarms. He’d just really, really not wanted to be late to the race. 

He poked Breakdown a few times, until the bigger mech woke with a groan. 

“What?” he asked. 

“It’s time!” Knock Out whisper-shouted. 

“Yeah, time to go back to recharge,” Breakdown muttered. 

“No - time to go to the track!” 

“Primus, this early? Tell Wildrider and Drag Strip to wait until we’ve had a decent rest before scheduling practice next time.” 

“Practice? Breakdown, the Quarterly Benefit 500 starts in exactly one shift.” 

“Oh no, really?” The blue mech’s optics brightened fast enough to short a circuit. “One shift from now?” 

“Yes,” Knock Out said, practically vibrating with nerves. 

“Then we have to get going!” Breakdown exclaimed. 

“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.” 

Breakdown jumped to his feet, reaching down to pull Knock Out up along with him. He dusted the medic off lightly, and gave his frame a once-over. 

“Your polish looks okay,” he said. 

“Hmm - I’d like to stop somewhere brighter for a final check,” Knock Out replied. If there was ever a time that he’d needed his finish to be absolutely flawless, it was right now. 

“Okay fine - but let’s get there, first.” 

“Let’s,” Knock Out agreed, following Breakdown out the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, this was a bit of a bridging chapter - but next time, the race!


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Forty mechs on the track meant Knock Out had thirty-nine to beat - and only three laps to do it. It would be tight, but he’d trained for this. He could do it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw: lots of car violence, car crashes, (robot) blood

Waiting for the race to start was - weird. 

Knock Out was crowded in a little room with what felt like half the bots in Delta, standing around awkwardly, waiting for the signal to move onto the track. He’d had to leave Breakdown and the rest of the Stunticons outside - the race was short enough that he didn’t get a pit crew, so he supposed they’d be watching from the stands when he finally got out there. It was an odd feeling, to be so far from Breakdown, after spending so long at his side. 

For now, though, he was alone in the middle of a crowd of speedsters. Everyone was mostly quiet, keeping to themselves - although a few bots seemed to be taking the opportunity to brag as loudly as they could. He assumed that was normal; most mechs got really quiet or really loud when they were nervous. Still, there was something about the group that felt off, something that was nagging at Knock Out’s sensors. 

It wasn’t the enforcers posted at the door, stiff in their identical maroon-and-black paint schemes. It wasn’t even the unnecessary shininess of the floor and ceiling, or the disturbing scent of cleaners. Hoping that he wasn’t glitching from stress, Knock Out took another look around the room - and then realized that that was the problem. He could look around the entire room, because he was half-a-helm taller than the other bots in it. These speedsters were fragging tiny! 

It made sense, he supposed. A small, light frame would have superior aerodynamics - it was the same logic that he’d used when designing Drag Strip’s armour. But really, even Drag Strip was of a height with Knock Out himself, and Dead End, Wildrider and Breakdown were all significantly taller. He felt an unexpected pulse of confidence - after all his training taking out heavy, powerful bots, these lightweight bits of scrap would be no problem. 

Case in point - the little greenish-blue femme standing next to him, barely reaching his shoulder. One tap from his bumper and she’d easily spin right off the track. Knock Out smirked, then blinked as the femme smiled back. 

“Hey,” she said, “I’m Moonracer. You come here often?” 

“Ah, no?” Knock Out ventured. 

Moonracer laughed easily. “Yeah, me neither. This is my first Quarterly Benefit, actually!” 

“Yes. Mine - as well,” Knock Out answered awkwardly, still not sure how to process friendly chatter from someone he’d been thinking about smashing to bits. How did Breakdown do this? 

“Cool! What are you going to ask for, if you win?” 

Oh Primus, what was Knock Out supposed to say? 

That he was on the run from the head of a criminal organization, and was planning to ask for protection for himself and his friends? No - it sounded ridiculous, like something out of a holo-drama. Plus, what if she worked for Pitboss, and had been planted here to kill him? He needed to come up with a believable lie, quickly. 

“When I win, I’m going to request admission to medical school,” Knock Out said - impressively smoothly, if he did say so himself. 

“Oh, nice!” she replied, still smiling. “But, why don’t you just ask for a medical license?” 

“I - what?”

If they issued licenses to medics whose only qualifications were winning a race, then Knock Out was definitely never going to a top-side hospital. Primus. 

“Not that there’s much point in calling yourself a medic, if you’re good enough to actually win a race like this,” Moonracer shrugged.

“I - I don’t just want to call myself a medic,” Knock Out stuttered. “I want to actually do - medicine?” 

“Oh!” The femme looked shocked, like she hadn’t even considered that as an option. “I mean, yeah, that’s cool. But why don’t you just race the entrance exam? It’s way easier to win than this one.” 

“I - haven’t won any races before?” Knock Out offered. 

“Aw, couldn’t meet the entrance requirements?” The femme’s optics were a little pitying now - she clearly thought Knock Out had no chance today. “That’s okay. Good luck, anyway!” 

She continued making eye contact with Knock Out. He didn’t have anything to say, but was too flustered to look away. 

After a moment she laughed, and said: “It’s funny that you mention that - I’m racing today to get out of going to medic training.” 

“Why?” Knock Out asked. 

“I just don’t really want to be a medic, y’know?” she said. 

“I don’t know,” Knock Out admitted. 

“I guess you wouldn’t!” she grinned. “But, I dunno - I’m just not a big fan of all those tubes and wires. I want to - not necessarily race full-time, but something like that.” 

“Oh? You don’t want to race full-time?” Knock Out had thought that racing was the goal of pretty much all top-siders. 

“I dunno,” Moonracer shrugged, “I love driving, but something about race tracks is so - sterile. It’s too predictable - boring.” 

“That’s fair,” Knock Out agreed. 

“Yeah, it is!” she said, optics shining. “You’re a nice guy, Red. I’ll tell you the truth, since you seem cool. I want to drive _outside_.” 

Knock Out did not think of himself as a particularly nice guy - stuck up, vain afthole was more like it - and was honestly a bit weirded out that this bot had chosen to confess something so deviant to a complete stranger. Outside, really? Knock Out didn’t exactly live a proper, acceptable lifestyle, but that was over the line, even for him. 

Thankfully, he was saved from answering by the buzz of a timer, signalling them to file out onto the track and transform. He lost the femme in the crush of bots moving towards the door, calling out a vague goodbye. 

This was no time to be distracted. Knock Out needed to keep his head in the game. 

He transformed and joined the row of cars slowly rolling forward. Knock Out was near the back of the line - he really hadn’t won any races, other than his adulthood race, so he wasn’t well known enough to get a good placement right off the bat. That didn’t matter, though - he’d planned for this. He was ready. 

Forty mechs on the track meant Knock Out had thirty-nine to beat - and only three laps to do it. It would be tight, but he’d trained for this. He could do it. 

Knock Out continued to try to hype himself up as he rolled, until the mech in front of him stopped - the front row must have hit the starting line. Beside him, a boxy racer with a frankly hideous red-orange paint job was revving his engine obnoxiously. That fragger would be the first to go, Knock Out decided - he could almost feel the tires ripping apart against his wheel-blades already. Knock Out didn’t necessarily want to kill anyone, but if the medics couldn’t get there in time, that wasn’t his problem, either. 

The countdown started, and Knock Out warmed up his engine, spinning his tires just enough to get them to stick to the smooth surface of the track. He fixed his sensors on the tail lights of the mech ahead of him, everything in his frame compressing, tensing, getting ready He pressed a little tighter, let his engine get a little warmer, and as the flag dropped on the big screen he _sprang_. 

In one violent motion he shot forward, blades flashing, slicing. The mech next to him was clearly unprepared for such a quick attack, letting out a startled noise that almost drowned out the sound of his tires popping. He veered wildly, away from Knock Out. That had been an interesting trick to perfect - avoiding getting caught up in a collision he caused - and the medic was happy to see it work so well on the first try. His victim lost control of his own wheels, spinning off the track and taking several other, unwary racers with him. 

Off to a good start. With a little more breathing room, Knock Out sped up until he was right on the tail of the speedster in front of him. The track was a fragging mess already, cars slamming into one another, knives out - the air was filled with the scent of energon and the sound of metal hitting metal. It felt - good. Knock Out felt intensely, viscerally alive - frame and processor in perfect harmony. 

They were nearly halfway through the first lap, and the number of competitors was already dwindling. Knock Out was solidly in the middle of the pack, keeping the others from getting too close with fancy driving and the threat of his wheel-blades. He didn’t want to chance even a minor collision at this point - there would be plenty of time to wreck his paint job later, if he had to. 

The pace picked up as they moved into the second straight-away, engines roaring louder as the racers shifted gears. Knock Out started to push himself, but was careful to maintain a balance between losing his position and pushing others out of theirs. This was one of the most dangerous parts of the race - most of the bots who were slow, new or weaponless were out, and everyone else was starting to get serious. 

The roar of the crowd penetrated Knock Out’s focused haze, as a flashy purple frame tried to edge forward, got a little too close to racer in third place, and was easily stabbed, hit and flipped into a barrel roll. Similar events had been happening almost constantly, but this particular fool must have added a performance enhancer to their fuel - as soon as their frame made contact with the flooring, they went up in flames. Not long after, Knock Out heard the distinctive sound of an internal tank exploding, and the screams of the medics and fire crews. There was nothing he could do but hope that he wasn’t next. 

More mechs around him were starting to push and shove, scraping up and down doors and tapping bumpers. Aggression and energon were everywhere, making the air feel thick, almost impossible to drag through his vents. His wheels still felt like they had a mind of their own - there was something inescapable about that, even after the parts had fully integrated. The thickness of the rubber, the delicate components of the axel - it was just a little off, a little too much like using equipment instead of using his limbs. 

But that - it helped, oddly. Knock Out felt an awareness in his wheels, his sensors, even his engine, that he’d never had in his old frame. It was at once slipperier and more precise, chaotic and more intense. Maybe he’d just fragged up his own code, but right now it was working. He kept seeing his fellow racers making stupid, careless moves - letting themselves drift too close or too far, losing track of a mirror or a doorhandle - but Knock Out knew every inch of his plating and kibble. Every mechananometer shift he made was intentional, purposeful. Knock Out wasn’t leaving this track for anything. 

Still, staying on the track wasn’t enough to win. Knock Out needed to be first - and right now, he couldn’t drive any faster without hitting someone in front of him. They were just beginning the second lap, and Knock Out did not want to be still stuck in the pack when they finished it. Drag Strip had told him over and over that there was no way to plan a race ahead of time; you never knew what was going to happen next. All a bot could do was have a pocketful of tricks, hands full of knives and a half-decent processor. 

Good advice for life, really. Knock Out wished that he’d known a few of today’s tricks back when he was a newspark. But that wasn’t important right now - what was important was that while Knock Out knew he couldn’t have a plan, strictly speaking, he did have a few milestones he wanted to meet. Middle of the pack by the end of the first lap - check. He wanted to edge out towards the front of the pack, now, and take out any opponents who looked like they were saving their strength for a final push. 

It was hard to come back from the back or the middle of a crowd of racers, especially on such a short race, but Knock Out had seen it done before, and he wasn’t taking any chances. Soon enough he’d have to stop playing it safe, and start removing the competition himself - even if he could make it to the final by hanging back and letting others do the work, it wouldn’t be a good strategy. 

Winning was everything, of course - winning mattered, first and foremost, and winners had their boons granted, no matter what. Still, Dead End had explained, there were certain intangible factors that had to be considered. A certain style of winning was preferred - racers that were fighters, that didn’t pull their punches - racers that drove with their whole spark. There was a time and place for cute little tricks and clever workarounds, but the Quarterly Benefit 500 wasn’t that time or that place. Bots here put their lives on the line, and they expected their winners to respect that. 

No, Knock Out wasn’t willing to settle for a pale, technical win. He would do whatever he had to to make this work; he needed people on his side, and leaders willing to stand up against serious underground power. A cheap win would get them cheap protection - hardly better than no protection at all. Knock Out had never been a fan of playing by the rules, but he understood pragmatism better than most. He knew that he had to make this look good.

As he rounded the turn of the second lap, Knock Out decided to make his move. There were maybe ten or fifteen racers left, of the original forty - it was hard to get an accurate read with his sensors. The non-stop carnage of the first lap had slowed, but things were still changing from klik to klik. Knock Out shifted, edging towards the outside of the track, getting ready to push towards the front of the group. He clipped a light frame with a hideous acid-green paint job, sending them into the bumper of the blue racer in front. The blue racer retaliated with some kind of projectile - good to know, Knock Out thought, filing the information away - and the acid green fool careened off the track. 

The blue racer was hit in turn, as one of the heaviest frames Knock Out had seen today transformed out a laser-blade and slashed deeply through their doors. Energon poured, making the track surface slippery for a moment, and the blue car slowed as fuel supply to his engine fell off. He was quickly left behind. Hopefully the clean-up crew would deal with that before they came back around - at these speeds, any loss of traction could be fatal. 

Time seemed to slow even further as Knock Out pulled into the space left by the blue car, then slid in front of another racer, and another. He was getting close to the front, now - and close to the end of the second lap. The crowd was starting to thin, and Knock Out could see the lead car, impossibly far ahead. There was more than a frame’s length between the first position and the second, with third and fourth further back still. 

But the fifth speedster - they were almost close enough to touch. One step at a time, Knock Out reminded himself. One bot at a time. He’d have to pass fifth place before he could get into fourth, or third, and who knew what might have changed at that point? There are no plans in racing, he repeated, Drag Strip’s voice looping through his processor. All he could do was push forward. First place was there, waiting for him - he had to stay ready, so that he could reach out and take it when the time was right. 

For now, there was a little green car screaming along in fifth place, and Knock Out needed to take them out. Someone with the poor taste to paint themselves that awful shade of olive didn’t deserve to win, anyway. Knock Out revved his engine and sped forward, finally making it out of the group. He shivered a little at the influx of information to his sensors - everything felt wide-open now that he wasn’t surrounded by racers, packed close on every side. 

He drew level with the olive speedster, the whine of their engine filling his audials as they tried to keep pace. They were good, far faster than even Drag Strip had been in the Stunticons’ practice sessions - but they weren’t good enough. Knock Out easily outpaced them, until he was perfectly in position to _snap_ his wheel blades out once more. The other racer was frantically trying to keep up, so focused on speed that they had no bandwidth leftover for defence. Knock Out’s blades slid in, the mech spun out, and there were only four obstacles left. 

Knock Out refused to let the mech’s scream - more anguished than pained - write itself onto his long-term memory. The hot rush of energon and the crash of metal was nothing. In the ages, eons that this race had lasted, one more crushed frame (crushed dream) was unimportant. Knock Out was doing what he had to do. 

He opened up the throttle a little more, until he was almost bumper to bumper with the car in fourth place. They were wary of him, now - they’d watched with their sensors as Knock Out had removed a fast, talented mech like it was nothing. They knew that they were next. Well - good. The third lap was starting, and the time for caution was over. Knock Out was about to show his hand, and hope that it was enough to get him past the finish line. 

With a loud, grinding whirr, Knock Out transformed his doors away, revealing two spinning, shining buzzsaws, and shot forward, tearing into the racer at his side.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're getting close to the end!!   
> I think one or two more chapters and an epilogue, and then a short break before I start the sequel c:


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Quarterly Benefit 500 continues.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw: similar to the previous chapter; blood, violence, injury, etc.

Knock Out’s buzzsaws were out, his engine was screaming, and there were only four cars between him and the finish line. He was ready to win. 

His front bumper was less than the thickness of an antenna from the rear of the car ahead of him. He was tempted to give them a little bump, just to shake them up - mind games were as important as fancy wheelwork in a race - but. He honestly didn’t want hideous brick-red paint transfers in the middle of his nose. 

The perfect gloss of his cherry paint was a little worn, sure. He’d taken a few hits, and there was more than a splash of dried energon on his doors. But he was going to be standing up in front of a cheering crowd soon - he needed to hang on to some of his polish. 

So fine - he wouldn’t hit the racer head on. That didn’t mean he couldn’t mess with his helm a little bit. Knock Out leaned into his engine, pushing every gear in his frame to spin faster, pushing his fuel pump to beat harder - pouring on the speed he needed to draw level with the fourth-place racer’s chalky red headlights. 

Up until now, Knock Out had kept his vocalizer muted, and for good reason - he didn’t need to distract himself with trash talk when he was obviously faster and more brutal than the competition. Plus, it would have been hard to make himself heard over the shouts, screams and jeers of the other racers, not to mention the roar of engines and shrieking crashes. But things were different now - he and four other racers were well ahead of the rest of the cars on the track, and the heaviest carnage had died down. 

This was the endgame, and the stadium was thick with a sense of concentration. Even the audience was watching with bated breath, cheers quieting to murmurs and the creak of servos clenching on armrests. In other words, it was the perfect time for Knock Out to have a little conversation with his fellow racers. 

“Hey,” Knock Out said, pitching his voice to be audible under the whine of his engine. “Hey, bot. Yeah - you, with the hideous paint. Primus, how many cycles has it been since that colour was considered fashionable?” 

Most mechs didn’t show a lot of emotion in alt-mode - headlights and bumpers weren’t really designed to move the way faces were - but there were tells if you knew how to look. Knock Out had been spending a lot of time driving with Stunticons; he’d won enough races against Wildrider to know what those contracting door handles and angled side mirrors meant. Fourth-place was getting pissed. 

Good. Knock Out wanted him angry. He kept talking, saying something about the mech’s conjunx, calling out his mentor - whatever he could think of. It was just typical trash talk, the kind that should have been easy to ignore from a stranger. But this racer was already at his limit, covered in nicks and bleeding slightly, looking at the end of the race in less than a lap, with the lead car impossibly far ahead. 

Knock Out was counting on the fact that this mech’s reserves of patience had already been tapped - that if he could say something provocative, the red racer would really start losing. Ideally, he’d become enraged enough that he’d stop driving so carefully and - yes! The racer’s wheels wobbled, and he half-jerked towards Knock Out. It was a desperate move, and brought his doors perfectly in range of the medic’s buzzsaws. All Knock Out had to do was reach out and the razor sharp metal slid through brick-red plating like it was soft rubber. 

Another hot spray of energon coated Knock Out’s windows, splashing up over his roof as he disengaged the saws and kept speeding forward. The former fourth-place mech spun out to the sidelines, leaving a pool of fluids across the track. One down, three to go, Knock Out thought. 

His energon reserves were still looking good, thankfully. His jet engine might be fast, but it was hardly as efficient as the average grounder’s - even for this short race, he’d had to install a number of auxiliary fuel tanks. Still, he was burning through them at roughly the rates he’d predicted, and he had plenty of coolant left to keep his overpowered drive train from overheating. It wouldn’t pay to be careful now, either - he still had three of the fastest racers on the track to pass before the finish line. 

Knock Out kept driving, pushing his speed up a little higher - he needed to keep something in reserve for those key, final moments, but the racer ahead of him now was fragging fast. They had a slim, light frame and a yellow paint job, superficially calling Drag Strip to mind. But where Drag Strip was sleek and dense, even after Knock Out’s changes, this racer was almost ridiculously light - their plating looked like it would crack like energon-brittle if you so much as touched it. The buttery yellow they’d chosen was a little easier on the optics than Drag Strip’s excessively bright finish, though. 

The absurdly thin plating - Knock Out was starting to wonder if it was even made out of steel - did have the advantage of letting the third place racer all but fly across the track. Knock Out had to work a little harder than he would have liked to catch up to them, but eventually he managed to draw his nose level with their rear bumper. Another moment assessing the odd little frame with his medic’s eyes, and Knock Out decided there was no need to overcomplicate things. He had a heavy jet engine, and quality durasteel plating that wasn’t nearly as depleted as it had once been - while this fool had some kind of carbon alloy sheathing their base components. The only reason they were still in the race was that no one had been able to catch them. 

So Knock Out sped up a little, slammed into the rear of the yellow racer, and knocked them right off the track. The force of his hit sent the other speedster into a roll, roof and doors crunching, lines detaching, and energon spraying. Knock Out dodged effortlessly, keeping his turns even and smooth instead of jerking into a dangerous swerve. He curved his course so that he was back, clinging to the inside of the track with yellow wreckage far behind him, less than a nanoklik later. 

Two more racers to pass, and the finish line was so close that Knock Out could almost taste it. The cars in first and second place were neck-and-neck, too - one would edge into the lead, only to be briefly passed by the other, before eventually gaining the upper hand again. Knock Out imagined that the gamblers in the stands were going wild, hanging their hopes (and creds) on a certain outcome. He spared a moment to wonder if Breakdown had placed any bets. They were putting their lives on the line, after all - couldn’t hurt to try to make some money on top of that. 

Knock Out wondered if he was strange, spending so much time thinking, strategizing, and even reminiscing in the midst of a fast-paced, every-second-counts competition. It wasn’t that he didn’t feel the pressure - he did, definitely - it was just that time seemed to have slowed down, or expanded somehow. He knew that he’d been on the track for a mere handful of kliks; there was nothing wrong with his chronometer, and the race really wasn’t that long. But at the same time, he’d been here for geological ages, with eons of energon soaked into his seams and drying between his wires. 

So perhaps it was strange - but Knock Out was glad he had enough room in his processor to plan and execute the takedown of two Delta’s best racers, in the less than half a lap between himself and the finish line. 

Right now, the blue racer was in the lead, his nearly-identical green counterpart about half a car-length behind. Knock Out didn’t want to try to beat both of them on speed alone - that was far too much like leaving the outcome of the race to chance. Knock Out had never seen the point of fair fights, and he certainly wasn’t about to start now - not with Breakdown’s life on the line. No, the ideal outcome would be to get at least one of the lead racers off the track, ideally with a crippling injury from his integrated weapons, before passing the other. 

He’d heard rumours that the judges preferred a violent ending, anyway. Apparently it looked better on the vids. 

Knock Out had been steadily increasing his pace since he’d hit the yellow car off the track. Until now, he’d been using his overpowered engine for shock value, cutting between bursts of incredibly high speed and slower cruising. Most of the other bots on the track were pushing themselves all the time, trying to drive at or close to the top of their range for the entire race - so seeing Knock Out far in the rear one moment, then on their tail the next was enough to throw them off. It was hard to defend against an attacker you thought was nowhere near you, and Knock Out had used that to take out opponent after opponent. 

At this point in the game, though, he’d used that trick a few too many times - his opponents would be expecting him to come up in a swift, unguarded rush. Awareness, especially three hundred and sixty degree awareness, was what separated the top-notch racers from the rest of the pack. It was easy to direct all your sensors in front of you, focusing solely on your next move in the heat and urgency of the race. It was much harder to not only be on the lookout for attacks from behind, but to know who exactly was behind you, and what their tactics were. 

Knock Out’s opponents were more than capable, of course - they wouldn’t be in the lead if they weren’t. They’d be on edge, expecting him to come up behind them out of nowhere. So he would take it easy, and casually make his way towards them - throwing off their expectations, and saving his strength for a final push at the end of the race. 

Slow for Knock Out was still blindingly fast for anyone else, though - within nanokliks he was pulling up behind the green racer, with the blue leader just half a car-length ahead. He tried to get in close with his wheel knives and buzzsaws, but his opponent was wary, ducking and weaving around the gleaming blades. Fragging annoying, but nothing Knock Out wasn’t prepared for - Dead End had always been good at avoiding his weapons, too. The trick was to keep the mark’s attention on the obvious dangers, then hit them with something else. 

Right now would be a great time to pull out, say, a projectile weapon he’d been saving. Unfortunately, guns were expensive - they had access to precisely one, and he’d refused to install it in his own frame. Breakdown was the one who needed protection, not the racer spending his days hiding out or secreted away in practice rooms. The big bot was best suited to be out and about, blending in with other heavy frames and dull paint-jobs in energon shops and coolant bars. It didn’t hurt that he could fight off pursuit more easily than Knock Out, either. 

No, he wouldn’t waste their weapon of last resort. It wouldn’t make sense to try and turn it into a frame mod, much less one that he didn’t even know how to use! Shooting and aiming in alt-mode took special sensors and software that they didn’t have, and integration would have taken time they didn’t have. Then there were the extra energon-tanks he’d need to power the gun, and the aesthetic impact of the barrels on his sleek and lovely frame… So maybe he’d had the argument with the Stunticons a few too many times, but Knock Out’s mind had been made up. 

He didn’t regret it, either; the bodies of goons with laser-holes in their helms saw to that. He couldn’t regret any decision that saved Breakdown’s life - but that left him in a bit of a bind now. Knock Out needed to get close to his opponent to do damage, and the fragger just wouldn’t stay put. 

A hot flash of pain sliced along Knock Out’s left door. What in the pit? He extended his sensors just in time to get out the way of a second dart - his visual tracking quickly traced it back to the green speedster he’d been so focused on trying to get close to. Mortilus take it all! Here he was thinking about how nice it would be to have something to shoot, without considering that his enemies might have exactly that. Stupid - Knock Out could not afford to let his concentration slip now. 

His own energon was seeping through the slash on his side, mixing with the blood of others that he’d spilled earlier. It wasn’t a bad cut - he’d taken a number of dents on his bumpers that would be more work to fix - but the waste of fuel was annoying. His temperature sensors were pinging him, taking note of the hot internal fluid against outer plating cooled by the air speeding by - calibrated against the burning engine under his hood, the rest of his frame was reading as icy cold. 

It wasn’t the most comfortable feeling - though now that Knock Out was tuning in to his aches and pains, the broken glass of one window (when had that happened?) and the sticky pool of congealing energon in his internal compartment was much less pleasant. If only that energon could be inside his tanks where it could do some good - or better yet, under the tires of green racer. He’d seen the damage that hydroplaning could do at high speeds many times earlier in the race - even a little liquid would be enough to throw off the grip of the mech’s tires, hopefully pushing them into losing control and spinning out. 

But, no - there wasn’t a way to get energon from inside his cab out onto the track - was there? His alt definitely wasn’t designed to transform like that. But what if he just slid the paneling away, and tilted the floor a little? If he opened his doors on both sides, to let air flow through and suck the liquid out - it might not be precise, but if the spill was big enough, maybe. 

Even as he tried to work it out, Knock Out sped up, pulling ahead of the green racer and getting into position. His opponent kept firing those metal darts, but he was obviously used to shooting at people behind him - the cocky fool hadn’t practiced aiming properly around his front bumper. The sharp, whizzing pieces flew to either side of Knock Out, and pinged uselessly on the ground. He spared a moment to feel smug, then triggered the jury-rigged transformation sequence. 

Clenching his gears against the pain - Knock Out’s frame was _not_ designed to move like this - he opened, feeling air gust through his interior. A frankly worrisome amount of energon poured out, splashing across the track directly in front of the green racer. He caught the barest glimpse of his opponent’s shock before the speedster hit the slick patch and immediately lost control. 

Knock Out pulled his sides back in, closed his cab, looked forward - and saw the finish line less than three car-lengths ahead. Frag! He’d been so focused on taking out the green racer, he’d barely noticed the distance they’d covered - and he still had to pass the lead car. The only saving grace was that the blue speedster and the one he’d just passed were so evenly matched; Knock Out’s front bumper was nearly level with the leader’s rear. 

There was no more time to think, no time to plot a strategy or even take a swipe with his saws - Knock Out threw everything he had into his engine, pouring on every last, tiny ounce of speed. His internals screamed, whiting out everything but the finish line in front of him. Knock Out didn’t know if he would shake apart with the speed or implode from the pressure of his fuel pump; it felt like he was being torn to pieces. 

Desperately, he threw himself forward, with his opponent glued to his side - they crossed the line almost as one. There was no way to tell who’d won; they’d have to leave it up to the recording-bots and the judges. The kliks that passed as Knock Out creakily transformed into his root mode were some of the longest of his life. 

He shivered as music rang out through the loudspeakers, cutting through the gasps and mutters of the crowd. He forced himself to look up as the big screens played through the last moments of the race at half speed. He watched as a grimy red bumper edged, so slowly, so slightly, past the blue one beside it, even as his audios rang with shouts. 

“And the winner is… Knock Out of Delta!” 

He stumbled forward, mounting the stairs to the platform, all the while feeling like his frame was somewhere far away. 

Knock Out had been waiting for this moment for a long time - waiting, hoping and planning. He’d bet his life, and the lives of his friends, on the slim hope of making it here. And now that he’d made it? He was standing in the middle of the stage like an idiot, unable to get his vocalizer to engage. 

He was also dripping with spilled energon - his own, and others’ - and dangerously close to overheating. More than a few of his delicate circuits were already fried, and his vents were roaring, desperately trying to bring in enough air to cool his engine and processor. But all of that was somehow secondary to his predicament. He’d been so intensely in his frame, aware of every inch for so long - or was it just for the double handful of kliks that the race had lasted? He didn’t know. 

Override looked down at him from impossibly high above, where she was lounging comfortably in the VIP box. 

“Knock Out of Delta,” she called, “what boon do you seek?” 

Knock Out sucked in another vent, fisting his servos to ground himself, and announced, “I seek a stay of execution.” 

The crowd let out a loud, many-voiced gasp.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading, all feedback is greatly appreciated!  
> You can also find me @moneychanges_ev on twitter.


End file.
